Becker Furniture Is Sold to South Dakota’s Furniture Mart
Becker Furniture, the local furniture chain bearing the name of the small Minnesota town it was founded in almost 50 years ago, is changing hands.
On Tuesday, South Dakota-based Furniture Mart USA announced that it has acquired Becker Furniture and its seven stores in Minnesota. Furniture Mart also took ownership of the company’s distribution center in Becker.
Becker employs more than 100 people, according to a news release issued Tuesday. The release didn’t disclose the price of the transaction.
Joel Huseby, whose parents Doug and Julie Huseby founded Becker Furniture in 1978, had been owner of the company. He’s staying on after the acquisition and will join Furniture Mart’s leadership team, according to the release.
Becker operates stores in Blaine, Burnsville, Maple Grove, Maplewood, Minnetonka, and Woodbury, but its crown jewel is its flagship store in its namesake town of Becker, a 250,000-square-foot behemoth with its own restaurant.
In a comprehensive plan issued by the city in 2021, officials noted that the store “draws customers from all over the state.” The store started out in a pole barn decades ago, the Brainerd Dispatch reported back in 2003.
Becker Furniture formerly operated a store in Rosedale and in St. Cloud.
Furniture Mart and Becker Furniture are roughly the same age; the former was founded just one year earlier by St. Paul native Bill Hinks in 1977. But the two differ in size and scale. While Becker operated only in Minnesota, Furniture Mart also has stores in Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin.
Consolidation is, of course, nothing new for retailers across many specialities. But the furniture business has been relatively slower to consolidate than others.
“Furniture is finally undergoing the same winnowing down that virtually every other retail category has experienced,” wrote business journalist Warren Shoulberg for home industry trade publication Business of Home in 2019. “But it sure has taken furniture a while to get there. Long the province of local, usually family-owned-and-operated players, the segment was slow to change, at least in part due to the capital needs for large stores with significant inventorying costs.”
For what it’s worth, Furniture Mart USA, like Becker Furniture, is family owned. What the move means for the Becker brand name going forward isn’t yet clear.
“As we finalize our long-term plans for Becker’s locations, one thing remains constant: our commitment to giving customers more choices, more inventory in stock, and faster delivery,” said Furniture Mart CEO Cory Price in an email. “We are working closely with the Becker leadership team to ensure we continue offering the brands and products customers love while exploring new options to enhance their shopping experience.”
Among the remaining locally based furniture stores in Minnesota are Slumberland, Schneiderman’s, Hom Furniture, and a few other smaller players.
