Home furnishings are a popular choice for consumers to redecorate. With trends like lifestyle blogs, social media influencers, and Pinterest making furniture shopping fun, online shoppers are replacing their furnishings more frequently.
Retailers need to leverage personalized marketing strategies through omnichannel automation and smart segmentation. With these trends, retailers can ensure long-term customer loyalty.
Eco-Friendly
Home furnishings are a product category that shoppers typically want to finalize in person. Touching and seeing the piece in person helps ensure the right fit and size. However, e-commerce can allow customers to experience the entire journey online, from inspiration to purchase and delivery. As a result, e-commerce providers have begun going the extra mile with their products to ensure they’re environmentally and socially conscious.
This includes providing accurate renderings of furniture in a customer’s home with the help of augmented reality and virtual reality. In addition, some brands have incorporated recycled materials and sustainable shipping into their product offerings to boost customer engagement.
Whether plant-based paint or table runners made with cotton cheesecloth, eco-friendly decor brands offer a range of stylish and versatile options for any room. These green products can also help reduce a customer’s carbon footprint. For example, a natural jute rug might require more resources to produce than a traditional wool rug but will ultimately have fewer unfavorable environmental impacts in the long run.
As a result, many consumers are shifting their purchasing habits to support sustainable and ethical shopping. In 2023, we can expect more e-commerce retailers to adopt green and eco-friendly practices in their sourcing, manufacturing, and shipping processes.
Comfortable Couches
In 2023, e-commerce retailers will be able to thrive in the furniture industry. People are spending more time at home as the global pandemic continues, driving more shoppers to purchase new furniture and accessories to make their homes more comfortable. This creates a unique opportunity for the best furniture e-commerce sites to capture more sales and profits.
Regarding the best couch styles, shoppers have many options, including what type of fabric they want (such as a trendy velvet or fuzzy boucle) and whether or not they want a sectional or a sleeper sofa. They also need to consider the size of their space and whether or not they have kids or pets.
One of the most popular couches of the moment is this model from Crate & Barrel, which has wide and extremely plush seats that our panelists say are ideal for lounging or napping. It also has thin arms, giving the couch more room for stretching or fitting another body.
The price tag on this couch may be steep, but it has an impressive array of features that users love. This includes a high-density foam mattress and a kiln-dried hardwood frame. It’s also highly customizable, with various color options and a build-your-own option that allows you to customize the couch’s length, depth, and layout.
Mattresses
While it may seem like a tall order to convince consumers to make such an expensive purchase online without being able to see and feel the product, it once was more far-fetched. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are now much more comfortable shopping for anything, including home furnishings like mattresses, on the web.
As a result, there are plenty of sales opportunities for brands that embrace this trend. For example, mattress-in-a-box companies like Casper are disrupting the industry by cutting out middlemen and leveraging low-cost digital ads to drive brand awareness and sales. With US digital D2C sales expected to reach $175 billion by 2023, there’s plenty of room for mattress-in-a-box brands and other furniture e-commerce retailers.
Consumers have also been embracing contactless shopping options like curbside pickup, particularly prevalent during the pandemic. Millennials, in particular, prefer to avoid the hassle of shopping at traditional retail stores and instead choose the ease of picking up their purchases from local businesses. As a result, companies that offer curbside pickup are seeing double-digit growth in their online sales.
Being fully transparent about your sourcing and manufacturing processes can increase customer trust. For instance, many mattress manufacturers are working to use more recycled materials and are sustainably making their products. These efforts can boost consumer confidence and encourage them to buy your mattress.
Home Decor
Home decor is a big part of making a home feel warm and welcoming, and shoppers must find items that reflect their style. That’s why some e-commerce furniture brands focus on creative marketing strategies to meet customer expectations and experience long-term growth. These strategies include SMS marketing, email personalization, and using big data to predict shopping behavior.
Additionally, the brand shares its environmental and social values with customers through product descriptions to build trust and loyalty.
One trend that’s here to stay is natural materials. This includes wood tones like reclaimed oak, which pop up in everything from headboards to tables and chairs. Other popular choices are rattan and cane, which can read traditional, coastal, bohemian or modern, depending on their use. For example, this Utah bedroom from Grove Collective uses a cane settee and chair to create a desirable retreat. Wild patterns and rich paint shades are other trends in home decor. The former adds interest to a room, while the latter offers an opportunity to incorporate classic styles into any space. For instance, a checkerboard pattern can work well as a throw pillow or area rug.
