By Richard Craver | Journal Reporter

It’s getting harder to find a silver lining amid gloomy home-furnishings orders and sales.

Domestic manufacturers and marketers experienced a 24 percent decline in orders to a value of nearly $1.5 billion during January, Smith Leonard PLLC, a financial-services company based in High Point, said yesterday.

It was the fourth consecutive month with at least a 21 percent decrease compared with already weak year-over-year sales.

The survey found that 95 percent of the participants reported declines in orders during January, with about 76 percent down more than 20 percent.

Home-furnishings retailers are not faring well, either. The Commerce Department reported that furniture sales were down 11 percent in February to $8.4 billion.

Ken Smith, the director of furniture services for Smith Leonard, said that many of the sales in the wooden-furniture category likely were at deep discounts as domestic and international manufacturers cut prices to clear inventory.

“Manufacturers and distributors cannot stay in business selling all this stuff at some of the discounts we have heard,” Smith said.

For the retailer, keep in mind that much of the stuff being bought at deep discounts was not selling before. Yes, you can probably sell because it is cheaper, but that means less dollar margin with the same old fixed costs to show, warehouse, advertise and deliver it.”

That casts darker clouds on the 100th anniversary of the High Point Market, which begins its spring trade show April 25.

Britt Beemer, the chairman of America’s Research Group, said it’s not surprising that more consumers are cutting back spending on big-ticket items such as furniture.

“The furniture industry will see no positive movement from income-tax checks this year since consumers are spending their refunds on bills and paying down debt rather than making major purchases,” Beemer said.

“Those consumers who are buying want deals — big deals and even bigger deals — which is tough on retailers’ profits and margins.”

Smith said that one slim piece of good news was that last month’s premarket event was well attended.

Premarket is an unofficial event typically held a month before the trade show when retailers can provide advice on new collections before they hit the showroom.

“Most of those we talked with felt that the retailers were not expecting much improvement in the short term and were trying to gear their businesses at current levels of volume,” Smith said.

“As one exhibitor told me, ‘We feel that we have reached the floor; we just hope there is no basement.'”

â–  Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.