Dive Brief:
- Hooker Furnishings is opening a Vietnam warehouse in May and exiting a facility in Georgia as part of its efforts to revamp its logistics footprint, executives for the furniture company said last month.
- The Savannah, Georgia, location was largely needed to store inexpensive and low-margin products that are no longer a priority, CFO Earl Armstrong said on an April 17 earnings call. Hooker's Vietnam location, along with facilities at its home base of Martinsville, Virginia, will pick up the slack.
- Leaving the Savannah warehouse will create up to $1 million in savings in fiscal year 2026, with the exact amount depending on when the exit occurs. "So our logistics and our warehousing we believe will substantially go down from a financial footprint, but serve us better than it has," Armstrong said.
Dive Insight:
Hooker began using the Savannah facility in 2021 to store inventory for its Home Meridian segment's Accentrics Home brand. The company shuttered the brand in 2024 due to struggles with heightened container freight rates from Asia, and began reducing its activity in Savannah shortly after, according to a March news release announcing the Savannah exit.
Although Hooker will consolidate operations from Savannah into established and temporary facilities, the company won’t move end-of-life cycle products to other locations due to moving costs, its annual financial report said. Hooker absorbed a $1.3-million charge related to inventory writedowns from departing its Savannah facility in the fourth quarter, per an earnings release.
As Hooker rolls out the changes, the company plans to shift some inventory storage from domestic facilities to Vietnam. The Vietnam warehouse will allow Hooker to hold products in the country depending on how tariff policies evolve, and then "be ready to fill our warehouse in four to six weeks lead time versus a six-month lead time," Armstrong said.
"When fully operational, the Vietnam warehouse will reduce domestic safety stock needs, improve product flow, enable container mixing, support margin expansion and enable a speedier return on investment," CEO Jeremy Hoff said on the call.
The bulk of Hooker's imports are purchased from Vietnam suppliers, according to its annual financial report. Products sourced from the country made up 76% of the company's import purchases in fiscal year 2025, compared to 13% for China.
