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Furniture Market Grows with Consumers

March 16, 2010

More than one in three Americans are classified as obese by the American Medical Association and a growing number of manufacturers and retailers are marketing upsized furniture for the plus-size crowd.

As a Daily Finance article points out, big-and-tall shops and plus-size stores have found a profitable niche that furniture marketers are hoping to tap into. According to the piece, armchairs in the U.S. typically measure "20 to 26 inches in width, perfect for a slender frame, but too small for many customers nowadays. Meanwhile, dining room tables, beds and other standard furniture pieces are often too short, too narrow or too flimsy for plus-size users."

While the need may be there, marketing to this consumer segment can be tricky. Some companies such as OversizeFurniture.com dispense with subtlety while the Living XL website prefers to alleviate "discomfort, frustration and inconvenience" for consumers who need more space. Another e-tailer, Brylane, offers a large selection of chairs for "Plus-Size Living."

Many mainstream merchants including Crate and Barrel, Ethan Allen, J.C. Penney, La-Z-Boy and Pottery Barn also sell plus-size furniture. "Sleeper chairs" and "chair-and-a-half" are terms used for bigger furniture without crying out they are built for those going through life on the large side.

Discussion Questions: Do you see a sizable opportunity for furniture designed for big-and-tall consumers? What do you think are the keys to marketing and merchandising this furniture?

The Plus-Size Furniture Market Expands as Americans Widen - Daily Finance

Discussion Questions

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Comments:

I'm only 5' 8" but when I visited the home of my 5th great grandfather's house that he built in 1792, my head was nearly touching the ceiling. We are becoming a nation of taller and bigger people. A funeral director friend of mine now keeps a doublewide casket in stock all the times. It used to be a special order but demand for plus size caskets has gone way up. If only we could just get the airlines on board with this kind of marketing. Good idea in the short term but eventually, everything will need to be larger.

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David Livingston, Principal, DJL Research

The American public is getting bigger, so the market for bigger everything is getting bigger. Why not bigger furniture for bigger people?

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Mel Kleiman, President, Humetrics

Everything needs to reflect the growing size of a significant portion of the population. Cars (back seat leg room), high-quality women's fashions, beds, everything.

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Ralph Jacobson, Global Consumer Products Industry Marketing Executive, IBM

I am by no means a big person but I prefer bigger furniture. The 'chair and a half' arm chairs are perfect for curling up with a book and the deeper couches are great for afternoon naps. I am a slender female in a small apartment and I still purchased oversized furniture, it is just cozier! I definitely see this as a growing movement in reaching consumers of all sizes.

'sdeberry'

My sense is that the dimensions of many standard-size furniture items have been growing larger, but plus-size furniture above and beyond those dimensions would likely run into production run-size issues that might push retail prices beyond workable. For that reason, and because of the dimensions of standard-size furniture, I suspect this would be a pretty narrow niche business, at best.

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Ted Hurlbut, Principal, Hurlbut & Associates

Americans are always bigger. Bigger is better, right? And with a bigger home, normal furniture is dwarfed by the cathedral ceilings and wide open floor plans. But the bigger price tag for these bigger furniture pieces will only add to people's already bigger credit card debt.

I am starting to see a small backlash now; the emergence of 'hearth rooms' off of kitchens to create a cozy nook for casual relaxation without yelling from way across the great room. So hopefully the scale will normalize back down as people start to actually live within their means: buying only the size house they need--which requires more normal-sized furniture.

Oh yeah, and quit eating so much junk!

'popdesign'

As the average American consumer 'evolves' so should the products they need. Now if only someone would tell the airlines their customers are also evolving....

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Doron Levy, President, TheMortgageMachine.ca

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Furniture Market Grows with Consumers

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