— Furniture Today,
HIGH POINT — Residential furniture factory orders in April were down 13% from the same month a year earlier — but don’t panic yet, said Ken Smith of BDO Seidman.


“We believe the timing of the (High Point) furniture market had a great deal to do with the reported declines,” said Smith, national director of BDO’s Furniture Industry Services, in analyzing the results of the accounting and consulting firm’s monthly survey of factories.

He noted that while the 2012 market was April 14-21, this year’s dates were April 27 to May 4. That meant that some market-related orders likely got pushed into May.

“We hope to see much-improved May results,” said Smith.

Factory shipments were down by 6% in April, and also may have been affected by the late market, he said.

With the April declines, factory orders for the first four months of the year were running about 1% ahead of the 2012 pace, and shipments were about even, according to BDO.

Smith said the firm’s latest forecast indicates a “pretty flat” first half, with the second half improving over last year by about 5%.

“It appears that 2013 is somewhat of a reversal of the 2012 results, when shipments were up 5% in the first half of 2012 but only up 1.5% in the last half,” he said.

Furniture factory orders shipments in April

In billions of dollars

Change from March ’06April ’05

Orders            $1.938     -26%     -13%

Shipments         2.173     -20%       -6%

Order backlog  1.820 -6%        -3%

January-April  Change from 2012

Orders     $8.748       1%

Shipments     8.917      —

Source: BDO Seidman