Status: 07/18/2021 4:13 p.m.
Material shortages, increased customer demand and delivery delays: The tense world market is also presenting the furniture industry with additional challenges.
From Aylin Dülger,
tagesschau.de
From the beginning of the pandemic, homes have become more important to people. On the one hand, they spend more time there, on the other hand, they also want to combine more functionalities in it. To do this, they give their living and working space a new “make-over”. For example, the furniture company IKEA has seen high demand in almost all segments since the summer. As a result, products that are in high demand are not available in numerous furniture stores or are only available in small numbers. Similar problems exist throughout the furniture industry.
“In addition to the capacities of the manufacturers, the pandemic itself and the capacities of the transport industry are limiting factors that we can only partially influence,” said IKEA. This poses additional challenges for the company, which it tries to overcome in cooperation with its suppliers.
Effect of the first corona wave
All over the world, the industrial sectors are still suffering from the first corona wave in the spring of last year. Some materials companies, which usually have a fully continuous production, had to stop their production for a long time. In the furniture industry, there is a lack of materials such as wood, glass, plastic and packaging materials.
“The sectors thought that the lack of demand from the furniture industry would last longer. Then demand picked up again relatively quickly in the late spring and remained fairly steady over the summer,” says Jan Kurth, Managing Director of the Association of the German Furniture Industry and the Furniture Associations of North Rhine-Westphalia. The empty warehouses of the past year still lead to material bottlenecks today.
In particular, the question of when what amount of material is delivered is more difficult to answer. The companies are faced with high demands on flexibility and logistics. The biggest challenge is to react to fluctuating quantities, says Kurth.
High demand also after this summer
After the summer vacation, more furniture would be in demand again, says Kurth: “Because people are more at home and the shorter days and the longer evening hours are comfortable, demand will rise again. If the shortages are still there, then it could pursue the topic further. ”
In general, however, the products are generally available. A slightly longer delivery time shouldn’t influence the entire decision, says Kurth. The VDM managing director sees light at the end of the tunnel. His association assumes that the situation could calm down at the end of this or the beginning of next year.