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Crate & Barrel sells furniture, kitchenware, and home decor to shoppers in the United States and Canada.
Crate & Barrel is a home goods retailer. It sells modern furniture, kitchen supplies, tableware, and decorations for the home, aiming at shoppers who want stylish things without paying luxury prices. Walk into one of its stores and you'll find clean-lined sofas, glasses and plates, pots and pans, bedding, and seasonal decorations under one roof.
The company makes money by buying these goods and selling them at a markup through its stores and its website. Customers pay for the design, the quality, and the convenience of finding a whole coordinated home in one place. That's the appeal against rivals at both ends of the market: cheaper than a high-end design showroom, more polished than a discount big-box store. Crate & Barrel's history is a nice example of accidental branding. Founders Gordon and Carole Segal started the business in 1962 in Chicago, selling housewares out of an old elevator factory. They displayed products in their original shipping crates — barrels and crates — which gave the store its name. The company grew into a national chain and is now owned by the Otto Group, a large German retail group, which means it is private rather than publicly traded.
Today the retailer operates stores across the United States and Canada and faces tough competition from Williams-Sonoma, which owns Pottery Barn and West Elm, and from Amazon on everyday kitchen items. Home goods is a discretionary business, so sales rise and fall with the housing market and consumer confidence. The company has also pushed into newer areas like wedding and gift registries, which lock in customers early and bring them back for big life moments.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026