Anyone who owns a furniture shop or a furniture factory is facing new challenges in a market dominated by international chains and e-commerce. Here's how to find customers while keeping up with changing scenery.
It is essential for entrepreneurs in the furniture and furniture sector to know what the threats and opportunities are in a market dominated by giants like IKEA. Having become aware of the main players, making your business evolve depends on how you position yourself on the scene. Find out how to find customers who recognize the value of your company and the quality of your products.
Marketing in the furniture sector: what specificity?
The new technologies used for the customer journey , or the path taken by the customer to reach the final purchase decision, have changed the rules of the game for everyone. But few sectors such as furniture have had to face such a radical change of scenario as the one that has emerged in the last 20 years.
E-commerce and large retailers have given a new meaning to the concept of ‘price war' , a minefield that is not advisable to put at the center of one ‘s marketing strategy . The price of a piece of furniture from an artisan company, for example, cannot reasonably be the lowest on the market, but it will have its justification in the uniqueness of the product.
This is why in the 4Ps that identify the classic marketing levers – Product (Product), Place (Positioning / Distribution), Promotion (Promotion), Price (Price) – we must give less weight to the highly competitive price if we want to try to hold up the comparison with the giants of the sector.
To confirm this hypothesis, it is good to know some data on the top players that a furniture and furniture store has to challenge every day: Ikea Italia Retail is the first group in terms of turnover with 1 billion and 800 million euros , of which 131 , 5 million euros from e-commerce; in second place is Mondo Convenienza with 1 billion euros in turnover
Concepts and ideas for attracting customers to a furniture store
Let's focus now on some keywords that can be useful for finding new customers for an interior design shop or for a furniture factory:
Vision : the change of perspective is essential. Becoming aware that there is still room for small and medium-sized companies specialized in the sector is the first step to reposition themselves successfully.
Niche : intercepts customers who are looking for care in sales, attention to detail and personalized products. For them, your company is still the only possible choice, as long as competence and differentiated offer are perceived as an added value. It is up to you to highlight the strengths and make them known to intercept your target audience . Conversely, as mentioned, low-cost serial production is a terrain full of threats , in which it is difficult to steal market shares from the main competitors.
USP ( Unique Selling Proposition ) : the phrase that identifies the characteristics of your business. It must be formulated at the end of an in-depth analysis of the target and the product. Taking the IKEA USP as an example, we read “ Ready to assemble affordable furniture and home items ”: “ Ready to assemble furniture and home items at affordable prices”, that is the compendium of the core business of the Swedish giant.
How to advertise an online furniture store
In 90% of cases, the search for a product and the consequent purchase process starts from the Internet . This data is enough to make it clear how much an adequate presence on the web is important for one's business activity. For a furniture and decor store, online marketing cannot ignore some basic tools:
Website : structured with the correct criteria to be usable by users and visible by search engines, it represents an important showcase for your products and a tempting opportunity for lead generation, or creation of contacts to be transformed into customers for your shop . Make sure it ‘s responsive and SEO optimized, otherwise it won't bring any benefit. Photos and texts must also be of high quality and if you also have a blog alongside the site, you will need to make sure you always manage up-to-date content.
Social media marketing : Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, above all, can be effective tools for increasing traffic to the site, for lead generation and customer loyalty . In addition, pay-per-click campaigns, if planned and studied, can intercept very specific targets with even not particularly high budgets.
Online shop : allows you to find customers online and allows them to buy directly from home. The e-commerce part with the catalog may or may not be linked to the website and extends the reach of the brand even beyond the limits of geolocation.
However, be careful to carefully estimate the resources, time and money, necessary to make the structural parts of e-commerce work, such as warehouse management and customer assistance .
