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GREENSBORO - A local furniture retailer which used to concentrate on special orders has adopted a new business model as it struggles with a dramatic loss of vendors and a declining economy.

Black's Furniture, at 300 N.C. 68 South, now only sells furniture out of stock to walk-in customers rather than by telephone, a company spokesman said Tuesday.

"When the economy got tight and we started losing lines, we decided to stop selling special orders," said Brooks Reitzel, an attorney representing the store's owners, Chris and Wanda Cox. "We've stopped trying to compete with the large furniture retailers and gone back to a mom-and-pop type of business."

Reitzel denied reports that the business has closed. He said employees were taking inventory Tuesday.

Reitzel said that over the past few years the store has lost 80 percent of its suppliers, or about 25 furniture lines.

The attorney would not identify the suppliers, but a recent report in Furniture Today said they included Broyhill, Clayton Marcus, Pearson, Pennsylvania House, Hickory White, Harden Furniture, Lexington and Thomasville.

Reitzel said the vendors represented millions of dollars in sales.

In addition, in 2006, the owners moved from a 40,000 square-foot showroom on Westchester Drive in High Point to one twice that size in Greensboro. That sent overhead costs soaring.

Reitzel said, "It was the furniture world's perfect storm: lines lost, rising overhead and a weak economy."

He said the business has gone from as many as 60 employees to "a handful" currently.

As for the future, he hopes some of the suppliers will return and extend credit to the company.

"If we don't gain some of the vendors back we are dead," Reitzel said. "If we gain some of the vendors back and the financial institutions support us, then we can go forward. We might be limping, but we can go forward. It's a pretty stressful time."

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 and don.patterson@news-record.com.