The furniture shopping journey is unique. The shoppers’ path to purchase is longer and purchases are much more considered compared to other categories. Furniture is also a category in which shoppers jump back and forth from online to offline channels. With only 20% of the category purchasing on impulse, it is so important for retailers to aid the shopping journey for the 80% of furniture purchases that are planned. A few weeks ago I attended the Google Webinar “A Deep Dive into the Home Furniture Shopping Journey.” Google shares several insights on the search behavior of today’s furniture shopper and what to expect the next few years.
Home furniture searches on Google grew 15% YoY in 2014, exceeding the norm of 10% search growth across all categories. Interestingly, most of this growth is driven by smartphones, which saw 47% YoY growth compared to just a 2% YoY growth on computers and tablets. Google expects mobile to exceed tablet and computer searches for furniture late this year.
Additionally, the smartphone has become a powerful tool to the brick-and-mortar furniture shopper. According to Google, 40% of shoppers who price-check a piece of furniture on a mobile phone while in a store will end up purchasing furniture from a different retailer. Retailers with mobile-optimized sites and a mobile-specific strategy for their search marketing campaigns will have a leg up in stealing shoppers away from competition.
In digging into the category search terms, Google found furniture shoppers are much more likely to search for long tail non-branded keywords (i.e. “black sectional”) as opposed to branded retailer keywords. Shoppers are searching for a specific piece of furniture and then narrowing down options and where to purchase the item, as opposed to just shopping where they previously purchased furniture. Google attributes this nuanced search behavior to the rise in pure-plays.
Furniture retailers should adjust their SEO strategy to adapt to this search behavior. Have a variety of solid product content on your website so that your brand shows up in natural, non-branded search results. Retailers should also look into paid search campaigns and ensure you have a robust non-branded keyword campaign, in addition to branded keywords, to capitalize on category searches.
Currently, over half of furniture purchases involve your website—whether it is researching online before visiting a store (49%) or purchasing furniture online (4%). By 2018, that number will grow to 70%, which means the majority of your shoppers will utilize your website before purchasing furniture from you. Additionally, offline sales will reach nearly 8% of total furniture sales in 2018. Google also notes that offline sales are not cannibalizing in-store sales, but rather contributing to overall brand sales – affirming something we’ve observed at Blueport for a while.
For many furniture retailers, building an online store that’s as good as your brick-and-mortar stores has been challenging. Not to mention, building a responsive website to capitalize on the growth of smartphone shopping is even harder. Being a retailer today means you not only need an up-to-date, integrated ecommerce site, but also a digital team to run it and keep up with the latest trends in commerce. Fortunately for furniture retailers, Blueport Commerce was founded to help retailers like you solve all these problems. We offer a wide variety of technology and services built specifically for furniture and designed to help you quickly get in front of your online initiatives and your shoppers’ expectations.