The Internet and The Furniture Industry. There’s Room for Everyone, if the Strategy is Right.

With a U.S. population of over 300 million people of which 200 million use the internet it’s fairly safe to say that there are enough potential costumers out there for just about any company and product that wants to create an online presence. For furniture it’s an even more positive perspective because as long as there are people in the world there will be furniture. Simply put, furniture is a product that people need and want.

There are millions of web users researching or shopping for furniture on a daily basis. These consumers come from every walk of life and as a whole seek out just about every furniture style and price-point. One of the current issues is these customers are being funneled into websites of larger, and often more generalized, companies because most businesses simply do not create an online presence to compete for the online traffic that exists.

The main reason for this is most independent furniture retailers and vendors avoid the Internet because they don’t understand it or think it’s just too expensive to make a difference. For example, most stores still do not appeal to potential costumers with a quality online experience. Most vendors don’t think their website is relevant to consumers because they think that only their buyers will use it. Either way, these businesses are making a big and costly mistake in their judgement. With furniture buyers using the Internet as their main research vehicle, more retailers and vendors need to provide users with informative and appealing websites to become part of a costumers’ research mix.

Following is a small example. If a user types in “Italian leather sofa Northridge CA” in Google the top search results that appear (not counting pay-per-click ads), are classified ads of people selling used sofas. Only one local retailer appears on the first page in a large city within Los Angeles County that has nearly one million residents and many furniture stores. This happens simply because most Northridge retailers don’t even have a basic website.

Once any furniture business realizes the great number of potential customers that are online and further embrace the Internet then the path to success becomes clearer.

Building a Successful Strategy

Furniture businesses need to understand that when considering an online strategy they need to take a step back and understand that it needs to be developed in tune with their overall marketing strategy in mind. Furniture businesses need to appreciate that furniture is fashion, and fashion is all about lifestyle. This means that their approach must appeal to their consumers’ lifestyles. Similarly to other fashion markets, such as apparel, a furniture business must have a unique perspective in which to build their identity upon and that consumers can relate to. The great advantage that independent furniture retailers have is they typically focus on a specific furniture style and can provide costumers with great value due to their focus, expertise and understanding of their furniture. A similar concept applies to vendors. Independent of what furniture style or price-point they sell, all vendors are unique by nature and have their own appeal. The basis of a good strategy is digging deep to uncover what makes their business unique and leading from that perspective. From their image to their messages, and from their website to their e-mail signatures, businesses need to show off their unique values in every way.

Once this big picture strategy has been considered, businesses can then focus on how that strategy translates to their web presence. Thankfully a web strategy doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, although it does have to be well executed and maintained. Once the strategy is working then more can be invested into enhancing the results.

For both furniture retailers and vendors, a website needs to look good, be well organized and inviting. This can be done without a lot of bells and whistles. In fact, a basic HTML website with good content about the company, location and detailed product information can go a very long way in getting quality search engine results. Obviously a more sophisticated website is always better.

For example, a furniture company’s website should provide enough content on the site so that if a user searches Google for a product they learned about by typing in the product’s name, style or number their website has a better chance of coming up on the search. For retailers, content needs to include their geographic location and contact information on every page. By providing content that blends relevant company and product information with information that communicates their unique values a furniture company will begin to create a niche and build quality search engine results.

Another important point to understand about the web is that results are not built overnight, whether it be search engine placement, traffic or actual leads. This also then means that a website must do everything it can to entice the user to provide their information, most importantly their e-mail once they are on the website. Then they can start to build a list of users that they can stay in contact with on a regular basis. If a user doesn’t become a client on their first visit, it doesn’t mean they won’t become a regular client later on down the line.

The Basics of a Good Online Strategy:

Here are some basic areas to consider when building a good online strategy that helps drive traffic and engage users:

• Online Videos: People love being entertained. Even the simplest videos featuring a showroom or set of products can draw attention. People remember a great percentage of what they see and hear, and video is the perfect medium. Also users like to share videos through emails, blogs and social networking sites.

• A Blog: Blogs are a great platform to show a business’ perspective on furniture, design and fashion as long as the content supports that business’ perspective and product type in some form or another. Users enjoy subscribing to Blogs that are informative and can teach them something new about a topic they like.

• Good Content: It can’t be stressed enough that a web presence needs good content. Item information, descriptions, taglines and even SKUs are key pieces of information that get picked up by search engines. Content should also create a mood, set a tone and express how a product can appeal to the target customer’s lifestyle.

• E-mails: Furniture businesses should stay in contact with customers at least once or twice a month. These can feature a product, discuss some relevant news, give advice or a promotional offer. This is one of the best and most direct ways to build website traffic, stay top-of-mind and generate business.

• Sharing Links: A furniture website should provide basic share features so users can email a web page or post a product on Facebook, all which will lead back to the source website.

• Social Networking: Similar to blogs social Networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are good ways to share product information, news and announcements. This will help further extend propagate a website though the Internet while helping a company stay top of mind with its customers.

• Coding and Optimization: A website needs be built in a way that the pages of the site have enough relevant content, usually text and supporting images, to be picked up by search engines. Also, every page should be coded to where the descriptions and keyword meta tags relate to the content on the page and include some relevant company information where applicable.

• Links: It is important that independent furniture retailers have links on their websites pointing to the websites of brand they carry and, and vice-versa. This mutual support will help create greater traffic for both the retailer and vendor.

Although there are other areas of a good online strategy that will come into play, such as Search Engine Optimization and paid advertising, these are some of the basics that will help provide natural and lasting results.

Once developed, the good online strategy will start to attract costumers that are directly related to the products being offered because the approach is based on consumers’ wants and needs. As mentioned earlier, this is why the strategy should be based on the company’s unique values so as to provide users with a memorable and distinct experience while making better use of the natural way in which search engines work.

Everyone Wins

The reality is that the web offers a tremendous amount of opportunity for both furniture vendors and retailers. The main issue though for independent retailers and vendors is that the larger online retailers are capturing most online users that are searching for furniture. As more retailers and vendors build a good online strategy and web presence they will be able to filter in customers that are right for them by having a visible presence that is relevant to the actual needs of their customers. Collectively these companies can begin to build a much larger online network of companies and to level the online playing field.