Both foreign and domestic pressures have caused massive ripples in an already tenuous retail furniture industry—which has recently seen area stalwarts like Wickes and Levitz file for bankruptcy.

“The whole industry is unsure about what’s going to happen,” said Joseph Carroll, a furniture industry expert and publisher of “Furniture Today,” the weekly business newspaper of the furniture industry.

Levitz furniture filed its third bankruptcy in the past 10 years on Nov. 8 of last year, while Wickes Furniture filed for chapter 11 this past February. In court papers, 37-year-old Wickes listed its debt between $50 million and $100 million. It began liquidating nearly all of its stores in early March.

Other traditional retail chains—such as Bombay Co., Sharper Image, and Lillian Vernon—are also reportedly closing their doors. In addition, the National Retail Federation reports that February retail sales fell 0.6 percent seasonally adjusted from January, and many economists believe March numbers could be even worse.

Wickes officials blame rising fuel costs and woes in the housing and sub-prime lending markets as the straw that broke the camel’s back, but industry experts agree that many other factors are affecting the traditional furniture stores.

“It’s a lack of excitement,” Carroll said. “People don’t shop for furniture just for the fun of it. They only go to the stores when they need it.”

Statistics show that the average person only goes furniture shopping once every four to five years, which leaves traditional furniture merchants scrambling for ways to drive people to their stores. In fact, Wal-Mart sells the most furniture of any store chain in the United States because of their ability to bring consumers into its buildings.

Interestingly though, store closings present a false image of a failing industry, when in fact, furniture sales are rising $1.5 billion to $2 billion annually. The most successful independent sellers grew just 2 percent in 2006, while larger channels of distribution, like Wal-Mart, Costco, Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, grew 5.5 percent.

“I’ve been keeping a list of channels of distribution since 1990,” said Carroll. “In 1990, I could identify 18 channels. Today, we have 77 channels of distribution. The proliferation of places you can buy furniture is growing by leaps and bounds.”

With furniture growth averaging close to $2 billion a year, the industry pie as a whole is getting bigger but with so many different distributors, the slices are getting substantially smaller.

Still other factors are affecting the independent furniture industry.

“The baby boomers that used to drive a lot of the retail furniture sales are not buying as much,” said Ray Allegrezza, editor in chief of “Business Today.”

“They’re being supplanted by the 20 to 30-year-old group who have different tastes. Our industry, for years, has continued to churn out the lion’s share of what we make in very traditional styles that the younger people, who are actually buying more of the furniture, are not that thrilled with.”

One solution for furniture stores is to turn to niche products, like those sold by IKEA and Dania.

“We have more European, clean lines,” said Oscar Moncau, sales manager for Dania in Lombard. “Instead of having a sofa with pocket pillows and high backs, kind of a Lazy-Boy look, we have low backs and clean lines. It’s not ultra-modern but transitional.”

Moncau reports sales at the Dania Lombard stores are up 2 percent already this year because of its niche merchandise.

While an oversaturated market and antiquated products have had an immediate affect on the industry, recent developments in China, where 55-60 percent of all wood furniture imports to the U.S. are manufactured, will have major long-term effects.

As a result of a slowly growing middle-class that is comparable in number to the U.S. middle-class, China has developed labor laws that have already caused alarming price hikes for its furniture exports, with rising prices in steel and foam to soon cause larger jumps.

“It’s inevitable that they would have to start raising prices,” said Carroll, citing recent funding cuts for furniture manufacturers by the Chinese government. “In the last month, we’ve seen 30-40 percent price increases. Americans are balking and the Chinese are saying they’re now prepared to walk.

“This is throwing an interesting curve in the United States furniture industry.”

American manufacturers are now looking for alternate manufacturing locations, which includes factories here in the U.S.

“I think with the dollar being what it is and the values in real estate, we’ll see an uptick in domestic manufacturing,” Allegrezza said.

For the time being, though, American furniture distributors will be forced to absorb China’s price increases, a cost that will eventually filter down to the consumer.

“The cost of furniture by the end of this year will be a lot higher than it is right now,” said Carroll. “Now is the ideal time to buy furniture.

“The irony is, with everybody so worried about the economy, people are not very thrilled to go out and buy furniture, which is still considered a deferrable purchase.”

The furniture industry is also becoming more eco-friendly, yet Allegrezza warns that certain factors must be taken into consideration if environmentally conscious purchases are to become more trend than fad.

“To the consumer’s benefit, (distributors) really have to do their homework and really understand (eco-friendliness),” he said. “We have to be careful not to green-wash. Tell the consumer what it is and how it will help them and the environment.

“The industry has a great opportunity and they don’t want to kill the golden egg by being premature through over-promising and under-delivering.”