Room for Improvement

As businesses grow and expand, they often require a purchase manager to handle all their purchasing needs. A purchase manager is responsible for identifying and sourcing quality products, negotiating the best price possible, and ultimately, ensuring that a big chunk of a supply chain runs smoothly. This can be especially challenging in the home and furniture industry as these products come with unique sets of standards in terms of product quality and pricing requirements. Furthermore, this industry has highly been impacted during COVID-19 and the current 2023 inflation. 

The main purpose of a purchase manager in the home and furniture industry is to identify the best quality products while optimising the cost of the purchase orders. However, this can be a difficult task, especially in mid-sized companies, due to various pain points detailed below: 

The first pain point for a purchase manager in a mid-sized company is the difficulty in sourcing quality products. Oftentimes, furniture and home product suppliers can take advantage of the lack of leverage that mid-sized companies have when it comes to quantity demand, resulting in a lower quality inventory and higher prices than expected. Furthermore, the complex structure of the supply chain can often lead to problems such as high shipping costs and lengthy lead times, making it hard to meet customer needs on time.

Finally, purchase managers in the home and furniture industry must always stay current with the latest market trends. This is because trends can affect the pricing, availability of materials, and quality of the products. Moreover, trends are a big factor for consumers when making a purchase decision. This is also highlighted by Retail Insight Network: “with new look remaining one of the primary purchase motivators, driving 53% of purchases across total furniture”. As a result, it can make it difficult for purchase managers to pick the best items for their orders and remain within budget.

To overcome these pain points, there are a variety of options that purchase managers in the home and furniture industry can use. The most important is to establish a relationship with suppliers in order to maximise the quality of their products and optimise the cost of the purchases. Regular touchbase and interactions are necessary, it is also of  benefit to share with them the company’s plan for the future.  Additionally, purchase managers can streamline the supply chain operations to decrease lead times and shipping costs, as well as automate and integrate business systems to keep track of market trends.

In conclusion, being a purchase manager in the home and furniture industry can be a challenging role, especially in mid-sized companies. However, with the right structure in place - such as investing in  relationships with suppliers, streamlining supply chain operations, and automating business systems - purchase managers can provide their customers with high-quality products at competitive prices during the right season. To find out more about the home and furniture industry and its supply chain read our article:  Leveraging Data for Supply Chain Efficiency in Mid Size Home & Furniture Companies.