What November Really Told Us About Furniture's Holiday Season

Originally published December 12, 2025. This version was rebuilt from NRF, Conference Board, ADP and Census releases for the FIN archive, and the facts are as of that date.

With the official government numbers still delayed by the shutdown, the first read on November came from private data. It showed a holiday season that was working for retail in general and barely moving for furniture stores.

The short version

• Furniture store sales were flat from October and only slightly above a year earlier, while core retail grew much faster.
• Consumer confidence dropped to its lowest point since April.
• Private employers cut jobs in November, almost all of it at small businesses.

Furniture stood still while retail grew

The CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor showed furniture and home furnishings stores up 0.53% from a year earlier, unadjusted, and essentially unchanged from October. Core retail, which leaves out car dealers and gas stations, was up 4.53% over the same stretch.

That gap is the story. Shoppers were spending for the holidays, but furniture wasn't where most of the money went.

Update. When the Census Bureau's November report arrived in January, it showed furniture stores down 1.4% from a year earlier, so the official count was weaker than this early read.

Confidence slipped

The Conference Board's index fell to 88.7 in November, its lowest level since April. Plans to buy appliances and most electronics edged lower, and homebuying expectations ticked down too, though they stayed near two-year highs.

For furniture, the homebuying line is the one to watch. People who expect to move are the people who buy a room at a time.

Small businesses cut jobs

ADP reported that private employers shed 32,000 jobs in November. The losses were concentrated at small businesses, while medium and large employers added workers. Pay for people who stayed in their jobs was still growing.

Small employers are woven into local economies, and a soft month for them tends to show up in local spending, furniture included.

Where this left the industry in mid-December

November showed a shopper who was still spending but steering that money to gifts, deals and smaller purchases. Furniture held its ground in the early private data and lost a little in the final government count.

Related on FIN

• Furniture Shoppers Are Holding Back
• Furniture Sales Got Revised Down. Consumers Got Gloomier.

Sources

• National Retail Federation, CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor for November 2025
• The Conference Board, Consumer Confidence Index, November 2025
• ADP Research, National Employment Report, November 2025
• U.S. Census Bureau, Advance Monthly Retail Trade Report for November 2025, released Jan. 14, 2026