Market Survey for Wooden Furniture Industry in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Subsurface investigation, instrumentation and monitoring are powerful tools in assessment and Sri Lankan wood based industry is performing as one of the important manufacturing sector with a wide range of products. Wooden furniture is a large sub sector of the wood industry in Sri Lanka. This includes furniture for household, garden and other forms include office furniture for commercial & institutional use. Private Sector ownership comprises about 95% of the industry with less government involvement. Market share for furniture of State Timber Corporation (STC) is approximately 1%. Although major portion of wood product manufacturing companies are small scale enterprises. This study is aimed to investigate the popular wooden furniture products, species, selling methods and other materials using for furniture in year 2018-2019 by studying 308 filled questionnaires by registered furniture shops in forest department. Marketing officers were conducted field survey in 15 selected furniture showrooms for each districts of Sri Lanka. According to the results of the field survey, household furniture is the main role of furniture industry of Sri Lanka. Among furniture items 43% belongs to bedroom furniture, tables and chairs have 27% of the furniture items and 15% belongs to living room furniture. Teak is the main timber species used for furniture manufacturing followed by Mahogany and Satin. More than 65% of furniture in showrooms was made by Teak 15% were made by Mahogany 11% were made by Satin and around 7.5% were made by other wood species. Additionally to 47% of wooden furniture some portions of furniture were found in showrooms made by other materials such as metal, plastic etc. Wooden and metal mix 11% and metal 13%. MDF and plywood 17% and 12% respectively. Selling methods of furniture were identified mainly in two categories. Most popular method is direct method (from manufacturer to customer) and 55% were used direct method. 42% of sellers were
used indirect method. Most of the furniture sellers used to make customised designs for their production.

Keywords: Wooden furniture, Market survey, Sri Lanka, Selling method