Loves Furniture, the new company that took over many shuttered Art Van Furniture locations, is now struggling to pay some vendors and fill its stores with fresh inventory due to pandemic-related supply issues affecting the furniture industry and has hired a new boss to turn things around.
“To make a long story short, we kind of got ahead of ourselves a little bit,” Mack Peters, the new CEO and a longtime furniture executive who previously worked for North Carolina-based Klaussner Furniture Industries, said in a phone interview.
Even though consumer demand for furniture has been strong during COVID-19, with families spending more time than ever at home, the pandemic resulted in supply chain problems that are causing long delays for furniture deliveries. The problem has hurt Warren-based Loves and its total 32 stores in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania that employ nearly 950 people, including many former Art Van workers.
“We can’t get all the goods we want to even build our stores up,” Peters said.
