Furniture Markup?

[4everHis]

Does anyone know the 'basic' furniture markup? TIA.

[Tap]

That would vary too widely. My mother used to own an oak store and it was any where from 10% to over 100% depending on the piece and market.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Tap, tap, tap

[Dobela]

It varies. When I worked in a high end furniture store where all furniture was sold on commission, the mark-up was 250% initially. My job was to take the freight invoices and add 250% to the price the store paid and make the sales floor tags LOL. Sometimes on lower quality pieces the mark up was not as high, but not always. Accessories, like pictures, candlesticks, baskets, and such were actually sometimes marked up more. The owner seriously limited how much the salesmen could come down in price though. Usually they couuld only come down at most 40% from the tagged price without special permission. For example, the store pays $10 for a table and mark it at $35 to sell. The most that the sales person could come down for you would be down to about $21 without permission. Then from that $21 the salesman would make about $2 in commission.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Dobela
errors

[Momof3Maidens]

A good friend of ours had a friend of his who owned a furniture store. The friend let him come in and purchase furniture for his church office at cost. Our friend said the markup at that time was 300%. That was around 2001-2002.

[4everHis]

WOW! 250-300% Just wow! We're looking at sofas and trying to decide a reasonable offer, not ridiculous but reasonable. Never thinking markup could be that high. Thanks for the input.

[Dobela]

Wow! We just went furniture shopping. One saleman said he could only come down 20% and and another gave us 15% off.

 

If I tell my dh that they mark it up that much, he'll never buy furniture again!

Again, it depends on the store. And the amount they can come down may vary by the owner/manager. Or it can be a commission thing. They won't come down because they need the commission (our sales people were commission only). But, yeah. It is ridiculous. That is why we buy used or accept family hand-me-downs.

[Guest sakshisinha]

It solely depends upon the store and location of the place where you buying.

[HomeschoolingHearts&Minds]

WOW! 250-300% Just wow! We're looking at sofas and trying to decide a reasonable offer, not ridiculous but reasonable. Never thinking markup could be that high. Thanks for the input.

 

The high mark up allows stores to offer sales without losing money and covers their massive overhead.  You would not believe the cost of retail space, utilities, etc.  I worked for a lady who owned her own fabric stores years ago---her bills shocked me.  Then add the cost of employees, cost of losses (products that are damaged by customers, for instance, things that don't sell and have to be marked down to below cost, floor samples, etc. etc.).   Taxes on inventory.  And freight (cost of getting the item to the store). 

 

Without those mark-ups, they cannot stay in business.  That's not to say that I buy things at full retail---I can't afford it.  But it's also not a case of businesses sticking it to the little people---there is room for negotiation because they've built it in, but they likely can't afford to cut it down close to the "cost," because that's not really their true cost.