COVID-19 pandemic contributes to booming business, major delays for furniture industry

If you’ve recently bought new furniture and it seems to be going for a long time to get to you, you’re not by yourself!

There are huge backlogs across the furniture industry, and we’re since impact locally too.

The warehouse is busy at Bassett Furniture.

“Since COVID, we’ve been working like 45 hours weekly,” said Lisa Boyd, who works at Bassett Furniture.

“Since Memorial Day of this past year, our order flows have increased and increased dramatically,” said Jeb Bassett, senior vice president & chief operations officer for Bassett Furniture.

But with that booming business, they’re also working with big backlogs, meaning big delays for customers.

“The wood product is around 8 to 10 weeks and then the upholstery product is approximately double that,” Bassett said.

In the warehouse, they are hard at the job trying to complete these orders, but they’re experiencing delays of their own in terms of materials.

“We can’t get our products to us fast enough,” Boyd said.

Delays are blamed on the coronavirus pandemic slowing the movement of goods and other supply chain issues.

“There are a few issues out there that we’re working through each day,” Bassett said.

At times, that results in too much work without enough supplies to do it.

“If the product’s not addressing us, it cuts our hours back as well as the consumer, it hurts them,” Boyd said.

The surging demand can be good news for the Henry County-based business, especially after shutting down most functions in early stages in the pandemic.

“I really didn’t even think I would have a job. I thought I’d be in the home looking for another job. I didn’t think I would keep coming back here to visit work but luckily we did,” Boyd said.

“Well it feels great especially the following in the hometown where we were were only available in 1902,” Bassett said.

A double-edged sword driven by the pandemic.