Carole Sloan
NEW YORK — Ashley Furniture HomeStores vaulted from No. 13 to No. 3 on Furniture|Today’s list of Top 25 furniture and bedding retailers for 2012, but Wal-Mart and Rooms To Go maintained their grip on the first two slots.

And three distribution channels — manufacturers’ gallery stores, department stores and lifestyle furniture stores — set the pace for the Top 25 furniture retailers in 2012 with sales gains in the double digits.

Manufacturers’ gallery stores led with a gain of 17.3%, followed by department stores with 15.3% and lifestyle furniture stores at 10.4%.

In part, the strong increase in manufacturers’ gallery stores can be attributed to Ashley Furniture HomeStores, which surged 69.6% to $1.5 billion in 2012, up from $867 million in 2004. Ashley added 66 stores to its roster during the year.

In the department store channel, Federated Department Stores included the sales of the May Department Stores for a five-month period in 2012, following the completion of its acquisition. Counted as a group, furniture and bedding at Federated — including both Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s Home Stores — and May were $1.1 billion, a 25.1% gain over 2004 sales. Store count was 861 versus 459 in 2004.

*For the complete story, see the Aug. 21 print issue of Furniture Today.  Click here to order an electronic copy of the exclusive report Top Retail Giants.