As Pier 1 goes into bankruptcy, Tacoma’s Harkness Furniture just keeps going. What gives?

Ever buy anything at Pier 1 Imports?

Pier 1 was once one of the mainstays of suburban strip-mall America, a home-furnishings retailer that carved out a niche carrying Asian-themed décor and decorative items. Want a carved wooden box, a rainbow’s selection of woven placemats, a papasan chair? That was your place, and even if you didn’t have anything specific in mind, it was always good for a browse to peruse merchandise not likely to be found in other stores.

Until, over time, what Pier 1 carried could be found in dozens of other bricks-and-mortar retailers and, more ominously, the internet. For that reason Pier 1 has joined a very unexclusive category — retailers that have filed for Chapter 11 and are closing stores in a desperate attempt to stay afloat.

In addition to seeking bankruptcy court protection, Pier 1 is closing 450 stores, including all of its Canadian locations, and looking for a buyer. The company hasn’t released an official list of stores closing. USA Today says stores in Tacoma, Seattle, Federal Way, Everett and Redmond are on the list to be closed. That would leave, according to locations still listed on the company’s website, stores in such communities as Gig Harbor, Puyallup, Olympia, Covington and Tukwila.

Pier 1’s tale of woe is no more unique than its current troubled status, but it is illustrative of the changes in consumer buying tastes, habits and trends that can remake an entire sector.

The internet is a piece of that, but it’s not the only part of it, and it might not even be the most influential. Just as significant is the trend toward blurring the lines between categories of retailers that has resulted in an abundance of competitors in what used to be distinct segments, with everyone getting into everyone else’s business.

We’ve seen this phenomenon in such general retailing categories as groceries and health-and-beauty items (what used to be thought of as the stuff carried mainly by drugstores). But it happens in categories of specific merchandise such as home furnishings.

Decades ago furniture was largely the domain of department stores and well-established local retailers (remember when the most visible landmark when driving into Tacoma was the Schoenfeld Furniture name on the side of its downtown building?). A few national chains claimed a bit of the market — Ethan Allen, for example, on the higher end (still around), Levitz in the mass market (now gone).

Over the years the number of retailers playing in that space proliferated, for every style and price point. National chains like Ashley and Mor. Local outlets of national furniture brands like Thomasville and Bassett. Home furnishing retailers like Crate & Barrel. At Home. Ikea. Fred Meyer. And probably a few dozen more we’ve missed.

And then came the internet, not just in the form of Amazon and the online channels of the previously named retailers but new entrants like Wayfair.

Conventional wisdom says it’s the older, established, more traditional players that get pushed aside, but some manage to survive. How do they hang on? What place will there be for them in furniture retailing in 10 years, and how do they make sure they’re still around?

“We ask that question all the time,” says Dave Harkness, president of the namesake South Tacoma furniture retailer, marking its 100th anniversary this year.

The Harkness family — Dave is the grandson of the founder, his son Kellen is operations manager, meaning the company has made it to a fourth generation of family operation — have worked out a few strategies to cope with challenges over the years (competition, economic swings and such events as a major warehouse fire in 1992). Harkness says the last two or three years have been the best in the company’s history, and 2020 is off to a good start.

The components of longevity and growth include breadth and depth of inventory, an image of community connection and involvement, personal service (generational stereotypes aside, younger buyers like shopping in person if they’ve got the option, Harkness says) and the ability to customize orders to customer preferences.

“Over 50 percent of sales over President’s Day weekend were special orders,” he says.

He’s even been able to maintain price competitiveness with the online outfits. The furniture business, he adds, has a surprisingly high rate of customer returns, which works out as another competitive advantage to him. Delivery and return shipping charges can mount up quickly for an out-of-market online retailing. For Harkness, it’s a matter of sending out the truck to the customer’s home.

“If they don’t like the blue one, we’ll bring them the green one. They don’t like the green one, we’ll bring them the red one,” he says.

Traditional retailers also survive by putting new marketing channels to work for them, and Harkness has a large percentage of its inventory listed and priced online; it also uses marketing tools like Facebook and Google ad words.

The furniture business, like other segments of retailing, will shake itself out to a mix of players that master the best features of online or traditional retailing, or both, and then be shaken up again by whatever the next great shift in customer tastes and behavior or the next generation of competitor.

You may be reading about these changes while settled in your favorite comfy chair. Depending on how well retailers anticipate, prepare for and handle those changes, that chair you’re enjoying may come from a retailer that has been and will be around for generations — or it may outlast the company that sold it to you.

This story was originally published February 23, 2020 at 7:00 AM.