When is the best time to buy furniture

Most furniture companies aren't going to tell you outright the best time to buy their products. However, at Deft we process hundreds of thousands of furniture listings a day and we've been able to spot some strong trends. In this guide, we'll cover indoor, outdoor, home decor, and some other furniture buying tips from our research.

Furnishing your home can be a big expense. We hope this analysis from our search data can help you save some money without sacrificing on quality or style.

Pricing trends for Outdoor Furniture

Have you ever noticed that summer clothes usually go on sale right at the end of the warm season? The same applies to outdoor furniture. We ran a price comparison across 100 popular outdoor brands and products including umbrellas, outdoor sectionals, chairs, and other patio furniture. What we found is that brands across the board lower their prices dramatically (or offer sales) right around August and September. This data lines up perfectly with Labor Day sales which usually see the largest drop in outdoor furniture pricing. Those prices continue through December and start to rise right after New Years when people are starting to think about the upcoming spring and summer seasons.

The only risk you need to consider if you're waiting for that discounted pricing is that we've found stock and availability of products to be lower. Furniture brands don't come out with new versions every year like in electronics, but they do stock based on seasonality unless it's made to order.

How about Indoor Furniture

So when is the best time to buy indoor furniture? This one is a bit more ambiguous because indoor furnishings are less affected by seasonal changes than outdoor pieces. As a general rule of thumb, January through March had the only price drops we saw across all the brands. We believe the timing is less home purchases, less customers moving into new homes, and brands trying to clear out existing inventory at the end of the year.

Here's the overall trend.

Indoor furniture is a much broader category than outdoor, so we'll cover some of the nuances of sub-categories where we found decent data. If you don't see the category mentioned or if prices aren't budging, we recommend waiting on one of the sales mentioned in the next section.

Best time to buy furniture within indoor furniture sub categories

Beds & Mattresses

The best time to buy is March through April when most mattress companies launch their new models.

Lighting

The only price drop we saw was in January. We assume this is when they are trying to refresh inventory.

‍Living Room Furniture (Couches, Chairs, Sectionals, Tables, etc.)

January through March would be our recommendation for snagging a good deal.

Office Furniture

Home office furniture is best purchased in August and September. Unlike most indoor furniture, March is not a good month to buy office furniture as there's an uptick in people switching jobs and thus needing new office supplies. We've also seen a few trends during back to school sales, but it wasn't anything substantial.

Rugs

Furniture retailers lower their prices for rugs in September and October based on our data.

Storage

The consensus is August. We wouldn't recommend during the period hallmarked as "Spring Cleaning"

When are the major furniture sales

We found that most brands have sales whenever they refresh inventory or launch seasonal products. Each sub-category is specific so if you're looking for an all-inclusive sale we found Labor Day (September) and New Years (January) to the biggest drops. Obviously, there's the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, but those can be hit or miss when it comes to furniture brands and sometimes we've seen their MSRP prices spike during those periods to account for the discount.

General furniture buying tips

• Measure twice before making purchases! Furniture is often pain to get inside the house, install, and even harder to return. Giving it another once over will save you a lot of time and frustration.

• Message or call their customer service team before buying a product. Sometimes they have discount codes that aren't available on the website. 10% off on products over $1000 is significant and worth waiting for someone to respond.

• There's a plethora of interior design services online today. Sometimes having a plan before going out and making that big purchases will save you both time and money. You'll have a more cohesive home and if you have a vision of what you're going for, you can even shop refurbished and resale products.

Conclusion

We know that purchasing new furniture can sometimes feel overwhelming and there's buyers remorse when you don't get the best price. We hope this analysis helps you make some smart decisions. Happy hunting!

About Deft

We've built a search engine for shopping with no advertising or SEO. You can search with natural language, images, or both across hundreds of e-commerce sites. Give it a try!

‍