As brands and retailers constantly strive to keep up with changing shopper behavior, it’s important to consider how specific product categories are affected by economy-wide trends. The home furniture space has experienced a big shift to online shopping over the past decade, and that was before the pandemic had so many consumers redecorating their homes during lockdowns.

Our Shopper Influence Research looked at how home furniture shoppers operate today, finding that their shopper journey runs from a few days to a month and skews heavily online. Alter Agents CSO Devora Rogers writes more about our findings in her article for Furniture Today, “Furnishing your shoppers with information.”

Home furniture shoppers describe a gap between the sources that they use the most and those that are most influential in determining which product they ultimately buy. Online retail channels were the most-often used sources, particularly features like algorithmic suggestions, online marketplaces with filters, and retailer mobile apps. Investing in optimizing those tools is important for furniture retailers. However, the most influential sources for shoppers in the category were offline – recommendations from family, friends, and store employees were some of the top factors shoppers identified.

This means that brands and retailers have an opportunity to get a leg up by making information as widely available as possible, both to buyers and in-store associates. “Shoppers said that they often turn to recommendations from professionals, store employees, and other consumers for information on the specific attributes,” Rogers writes. “How easy is it to get stains out of this couch? Will the feet of this chair scratch my floors?” Personal education is key.

She concludes with: “It’s important for brands and retailers to adopt a marketing strategy that taps into information resources like professional reviews and store associate recommendations to best influence where their shoppers make the final call.”

Are you ready to find out how your shoppers go about their purchase journey?

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