HICKORY, N.C. — With a new wave of tariffs set to hit the housing and home furnishings industries on Tuesday — including a 25% import tax on cabinets, vanities and upholstered furniture — furniture manufacturers are bracing for what could be another volatile chapter in an already turbulent year.
For Alex Shuford III, CEO of the Rock House Farm family of brands — whose holdings include Century, Hancock & Moore, Hickory Chair and several other high-end furniture companies — the tariff picture is both opportunity and obstacle.
Speaking Wednesday night with NPR’s Kai Ryssdal on the network’s economic and business news program Marketplace, Shuford described 2025 as “a year of chaos” for the industry. His company, headquartered in Hickory, N.C., had expected improving conditions heading into 2025 as mortgage rates eased and post-pandemic sluggishness lifted. But the recent round of tariff policy shifts, he said, have made long-term planning nearly impossible.
“Tariffs are one thing,” Shuford told Ryssdal. “But the fact that it continues to change periodically is making it awful hard to plan.”
While the new import taxes may create short-term benefits for domestic manufacturers, Shuford warned that the instability surrounding them could damage the broader retail ecosystem that supports American producers.
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“There’s no question that we could see some people that typically import their product want to have it made, or at least quoted, in the United States,” he said. “But our big fear is that across the medium timescale — and certainly the longer horizon — it’s pretty destructive to our retail furniture store base, the people that we sell furniture to.”
He added that many of those retailers rely heavily on moderate-priced imported goods to keep their businesses viable.
“A lot of their revenue that they rely on to pay their bills comes from a more moderate price point than ours, and that customer is very price sensitive,” Shuford said. “And if they see that revenue column start to shrink, then that puts their store at risk, and we rely on those retail outlets to be successful.”
Those same challenges, he said, are compounded by ongoing labor shortages that limit domestic manufacturers’ ability to quickly ramp up production.
“Training for that level of skill will take years,” he said. “On the timescale we’re talking about, I’m not sure anybody’s willing to make that investment.”
As the company prepares for upcoming trade markets and the next product development cycle, Shuford said uncertainty remains the industry’s biggest adversary. “We compete pretty well when you give us a chance,” he said. “But if you keep changing the rules, it’s awful hard to plan.”
