Signals Every Furniture Executive Should Watch

Originally published January 15, 2026. This version was rebuilt from Census, NAR and Wayfair releases for the FIN archive, and the facts are as of that date.

Mid-January brought a weak month for furniture stores and the best month for home sales in nearly three years. The gap between the two was the story to watch.

The short version

• Furniture store sales fell from a year earlier in November.
• Existing home sales rose to their strongest pace in nearly three years in December.
• Wayfair helped build Google's protocol for buying directly inside AI tools.

Furniture stores slip

The Census Bureau's delayed advance report showed furniture and home furnishings store sales down 0.1% from October and 1.4% from a year earlier in November.

Home sales pick up

NAR reported existing home sales up 5.1% in December to an annual pace of 4.35 million, 1.4% above a year earlier, with fewer homes listed for sale.

A closing usually comes before the furniture purchase. If the pace held, stores would start to feel it in the spring.

Wayfair and AI checkout

Wayfair said it co-developed Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard that lets shoppers buy inside Google's AI Mode and Gemini while the retailer stays the merchant of record.

Large furniture sellers were moving to be the answer when a shopper asks an AI tool what to buy. Smaller stores would need clean product data to be found the same way.

The gap to watch

Housing was turning up while furniture stores were still sliding. How long that gap lasted would shape the first half of 2026.

Related on FIN

• Move-In Furniture Tickets Are Drying Up
• Furniture Shoppers Are Holding Back

Sources

• US Census Bureau, Advance Monthly Retail Trade Report, November 2025
• National Association of Realtors, Existing-home sales report for December 2025
• Wayfair, Wayfair Partners with Google to Advance AI-Powered Shopping for the Home