22 Benefits of eCommerce for Home Décor and Furniture Businesses

Home décor and furniture businesses are increasingly turning to eCommerce to elevate their operations and capture new opportunities. Let’s explore the range of strategic and operational advantages that eCommerce can offer in the realm of home décor and furniture.

Market Reach and Growth

1. Wider Audience Reach: With eCommerce, home décor and furniture businesses can showcase their products to a global audience. They can work to promote their own web site to a broader audience, but modern eCommerce engines also support integration with marketplaces, amplifying reach even further.
2. 24/7 Accessibility: eCommerce stores provide better availability and accessibility than physical stores. The convenience of anytime shopping caters to the modern consumer’s lifestyle, aligning with the expectation of flexibility in today’s fast-paced world. eCommerce stores are also a great option when visiting retail stores is not an option.

   Consider Surplus Furniture, a leading furniture and mattress retailer with 34 retail locations across the USA and Canada. During COVID-19, with all retail locations shut, their business took a huge hit because of lack of a fully functional eCommerce store. However, they were not only able to bounce back by quickly adopting an eCommerce store but also take customer experience to the next level by integrating the eCommerce store with their ERP/ POS system.

3. Cross-Selling and Upselling Opportunities: eCommerce platforms provide opportunities for effective cross-selling and upselling. Strategic product placements, personalized recommendations, and bundled offers encourage customers to explore additional items. This not only enhances the shopping experience but also boosts the average transaction value, contributing significantly to revenue growth.

Customer Experience and Engagement

4. Immersive Product Visualization: High-quality images, 360-degree 3D views, and augmented reality contribute to a rich and interactive shopping environment. Customers can now virtually “touch and feel” products, fostering a sense of connection and confidence in their purchasing decisions.
5. Enhanced Customer Engagement: Implementing eCommerce technology can also bring an organization’s customer engagement strategy into focus. Features like personalized recommendations, wishlists, and interactive product displays contribute to a more engaging and personalized shopping experience. Beyond the transaction, these experiences and tools can help cultivate a relationship that promotes brand loyalty and repeat business.
6. Personalized Customer Experience: eCommerce allows businesses to personalize the customer experience based on preferences, purchase history, and behavior. Tailored product recommendations and personalized communication enhance customer satisfaction. This personalized touch resonates with customers, making them feel valued and understood, ultimately strengthening their connection with the brand.

   Consider Earthcore Industries, an exclusive manufacturer and distributor of Isokern Fireplaces & Chimney systems throughout the Americas. Earthcore leveraged their eCommerce store to offer personalized pricing for their B2B customers by leveraging contract terms defined for them in the ERP system.

7. Enhanced Customer Service and Post-Purchase Engagement: Customers value post-purchase engagement through features like order tracking, personalized recommendations, and follow-up communication. The transparency in post-purchase communication builds trust and confidence, enhances customer loyalty, solidifies the brand-customer relationship, and encourages repeat business.

   Consider Bedgear, a proud manufacturer of innovative bedding products. Bedgear’s products required special handling and care due to size, fragility, or value to ship, deliver, and set up. To ensure customer satisfaction with timely and damage free deliveries, they added white glove delivery as a custom shipping method for certain products.

8. Improved Credibility through Customer Reviews and Feedback: Sales in the home décor and furniture space are driven by a combination of product and trust in the seller’s ability to deliver a great experience. eCommerce allows retailers to gather and showcase customer reviews and feedback. Positive reviews contribute to enhanced credibility, while constructive feedback offers valuable insights for continuous improvement. This transparent approach to feedback not only builds trust with existing customers but also serves as a positive signal for potential customers.

Operational Efficiency and Scalability

9. Business Scalability: eCommerce platforms offer unparalleled scalability, allowing businesses to adapt to changing demands and scale operations as needed. This flexibility is crucial for handling growth without compromising on efficiency. The ability to scale operations quickly is a key advantage for home décor and furniture businesses experiencing fluctuations in demand or those looking to expand their product offerings without worrying about the limitations of physical space.
   As mentioned earlier, Earthcore Industries started by onboarding a few customers to their eCommerce platform. However, they now service 20 times more customers from the same eCommerce platform while leveraging their multiple warehouses locations for order fulfilment.
10. Seamless Operations and Cost Efficiency: Operating an eCommerce store drives more visibility and enables effective utilization of the extensive physical infrastructure that is common with home décor and furniture businesses. In addition, various aspects of the business, from inventory management to order processing and logistics, can be automated through the eCommerce platforms. While the newfound efficiency enables strategic resource allocation, the automation streamlines operations reducing the likelihood of errors and delays, contributing to a positive overall customer experience.

    Consider Surplus Furniture, a leading furniture and mattress retailer with 34 retail locations across the USA and Canada. By integrating their eCommerce store with their ERP/ POS systems, they were able to improve customer experience and drive more traffic to their retail store by enabling fulfilment options like Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPS) or store pickup.

11. Efficient Inventory Management: Integration with inventory management systems allows businesses to centralize and distribute inventory efficiently. This helps prevent overstock or stockouts, optimize inventory replenishment, and enhance overall inventory management. Real-time updates on inventory status contribute to better decision-making, ensuring that products are available when and where they are needed.

    Consider Jaipur Living, an international brand for rugs and home décor fabric designs, that was leveraging their eCommerce store to serve B2B and B2C customers. By automating data sync between eCommerce and ERP systems they streamlined their inventory management and reduced overselling of products. In addition, they were able to enhance the customer shopping experience by better communicating the product availability – displaying accurate stock levels and additional information like “Quantity Available in X days” and “Backorder ETA”.

12. Streamlined Returns: The entire returns process becomes automated through eCommerce, enhancing customer satisfaction and fostering loyalty. From initiating a return request to processing refunds, automation ensures efficiency. The streamlined returns process contributes to a positive post-purchase experience, turning potential challenges into opportunities to showcase excellent customer service.
     
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Marketing and Promotion

13. Omni-channel Marketing & Brand Consistency: As the market becomes more competitive, customer experience emerges as a key differentiator. An eCommerce store can help home décor and furniture businesses provide a consistent experience across channels. Consistency in branding and messaging across various channels contributes to brand recall and reinforces the overall customer experience.
14. Targeted Marketing: Digital marketing tools integrated with eCommerce platforms will enable home décor and furniture businesses implement targeted marketing strategies. This ensures that promotional efforts reach the right audience with a personalized message, increasing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and the likelihood of conversion.

    Consider Jaipur Living, the brand dealing with rugs and home décor fabric designs worldwide, that we looked at earlier. With sales happening across channels, Jaipur Living was finding it difficult to centralize customer information. This challenge led to duplicate entries, manual overhead to correct data, and poor customer experience. ERP integration helped them centralize customer information and create a 360-degree view of customers. The eCommerce store could then be leveraged to run targeted personalized promotions reducing errors and improving customer interactions.

15. Cost-Effective Marketing: Compared to traditional advertising, digital marketing in the eCommerce space is often more cost-effective. Social media campaigns, email marketing, and search engine optimization can yield significant results without breaking the bank. The cost-effectiveness of digital marketing allows businesses to allocate marketing budgets more efficiently, maximizing the return on investment.

Integration and Innovation

16. Multi-channel Sales: Businesses in the home improvement and lifestyle industry are adopting a multi-channel approach by selling across online marketplaces. An eCommerce platform simplifies selling across multiple channels by automating synchronization with internal systems like ERP, CRM, and POS to external marketplaces and social media platforms. Multi-channel sales contribute to diversified revenue streams, reducing dependence on a single channel and expanding the brand’s reach.

    Jaipur Living, a leading brand dealing with rugs and home décor fabric designs worldwide, enabled multi-channel sales by leveraging eCommerce as a unified platform for both B2B and B2C customers. eCommerce and ERP integration made this possible.
    As another example, Attken, a Saudi Arabia based retailer of home and garden improvement products, enabled multi-channel sales by integrating eCommerce store with social platforms like Instagram.

17. Blended Commerce: A hybrid model integrates physical and online experiences, allowing customers to explore options like store pick-up, buy online return offline, and integrated customer loyalty program. Blended commerce aims to give customers the flexibility to choose their preferred mode of interaction, whether online or in-store, creating a more versatile and accommodating shopping experience.

    As we have seen before, Surplus Furniture did this effectively by leveraging their eCommerce store and their 34 retail locations. They personalized the eCommerce store to display products and inventory based on the store selected by the customer and enabled store pickup, driving more traffic to their physical stores while improving the customer shopping experience.

18. Innovation Opportunities: eCommerce opens doors to innovation, allowing businesses to explore new technologies such as augmented reality for virtual product trials, AI-driven customer support, or other cutting-edge solutions. Innovation becomes a continuous process, with eCommerce platforms providing the infrastructure and flexibility to experiment and implement novel solutions.

    Consider Earthcore Industries, the manufacturer and distributor of Isokern Fireplaces & Chimney systems. Earthcore integrated their eCommerce store with their shipping provider to provide real-time rates on cart page based on product dimensions, volume, shipping location, and more. This real-time visibility improved transparency, conversion, and customer satisfaction.

19. Integration with Social Media: eCommerce should integrate with social media platforms, enabling businesses to leverage social commerce. This creates additional channels for product discovery, engagement, and promotion. Social commerce enhances the brand’s visibility, tapping into the vast user base of social media platforms and turning them into potential customers. This could take various forms such as dynamic product ads, shoppable posts, and more.

Uncertainty Reduction and Adaptability

20. Data-Driven Decision-Making: eCommerce platforms provide valuable insights into customer behavior, preferences, and trends. This data empowers businesses to make informed decisions on product offerings, marketing strategies, and overall business operations. Data-driven decision-making ensures that businesses stay ahead of trends, aligning their strategies with evolving customer preferences.
21. Reduced Uncertainty & Improved Trust: Detailed product information, dimensions, and realistic visualizations address the challenge of uncertainty in online purchases. This transparency builds trust and confidence in customers. Clear and detailed product information mitigates uncertainty, making customers feel more confident in their purchasing decisions, ultimately fostering trust in the brand.
22. Adaptable to Trends: eCommerce platforms enable businesses to quickly adapt to emerging trends and technologies. This adaptability ensures that businesses remain relevant and aligned with evolving consumer preferences. The agility to respond to trends positions businesses as dynamic and forward-thinking, resonating positively with consumers and reinforcing the brand’s relevance. An example of this includes, how brands had to respond to COVID-19 restrictions and how brands are now responding to live selling.

In conclusion, the adoption of eCommerce is not just a technological upgrade but a strategic investment that unlocks a wealth of benefits for home décor and furniture businesses. From expanding global reach to fostering customer loyalty, eCommerce is a game-changer that propels businesses into a dynamic and competitive future. Embrace the digital transformation and let the journey toward success in the digital marketplace begin.