WASHINGTON — Even with the traditional boost from Presidents Day sales, the furniture and home furnishings category had a less-than-stellar showing in February according to the Department of Commerce’s advance monthly estimates.
It marked the fourth consecutive month of declining sales, though the heavy winter storms that hit throughout the U.S. in the beginning of February could be a factor.
The numbers, released on April 1, showed brick-and-mortar sales came in at an adjusted estimated $10.893 billion in February, a 5.6% dip vs. February 2025’s adjusted revised $11.54 billion. The month also fell short of January’s adjusted preliminary $10.998 billion by a point.
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Through the first two months of 2026, the furniture and home furnishings category has recorded an unadjusted $19.87 billion, which is 4.8% off 2025’s pace.
As a whole, retail tallied an estimated adjusted $738.37 billion in February, a 3.7% increase on 2025’s adjusted revised $711.92 billion, and 0.6% better than January’s adjusted preliminary $733.96 billion.
Elsewhere in the report, sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument and book stores showed an 11.2% year-over-year gain, while miscellaneous store retailers were up 10.2% and non-store (e-commerce) retailers increased their sales by 7.5%.
Of interest to furniture and home furnishings, sales for building material and garden equipment and supplies dealers were up 3.8% over February 2025.
The DOC’s advance estimates are based on a sub-sample of the U.S. Census Bureau’s full retail and food services sample. A stratified random sampling method is used to select approximately 5,500 retail and food services firms whose sales are then weighted and benchmarked to represent the complete universe of more than 3 million retail and food services firms.
