Furniture distribution in Europe. Part II

Consumption of home furniture in the new EU Member States amount to about Euro 6.1 billion over 80% of which is absorbed by Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary. Looking at the distribution system in Eastern Europe we can see that in recent years there has been considerable growth in the weight of the large-scale specialist retail trade. In this channel by far the largest share of turnover is generated by the chains, while franchised networks are still not very developed and play a much more modest role, and the same can be said of the buying associations. Many of the chains made their entries on the markets being studied in the Nineties, but the presence of big international names in distribution has been gradually intensifying. This report offers a comparative analysis of home furniture distribution in Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania), providing trends in home furniture consumption, distribution channels, market shares, retail formats, home furniture imports and short company profiles. For each country home furniture consumption is broken down according to distribution channel: furniture chains, franchises, buying groups; independent furniture retailers; non-specialist distributors (department stores, multi-stores, hypermarkets, DIY, mail order); direct sales and craftsmen. The analysis of furniture distribution by product/segment covers: upholstered furniture and kitchen furniture. Home furniture imports are broken down by country, geographical area and product (upholstered furniture, kitchen furniture, dining and living room furniture, bedroom furniture, non-upholstered seats and other furniture). Short profiles of major home furniture distributors with analyses of sales performances and market shares are also available.