The ways furniture stores should compete with online competitors

The battle for the high street rages on. Furniture suppliers have naturally felt the pinch due to various lockdowns.

Of course, now as life is returning to normal, it is important for furniture suppliers to engage with customers again, but also recognise that now the competition between online and high street is going to become more fraught.

What does it take for those based on the high street to differentiate themselves from the competition?

Diversifying their services

It is not enough to purely sell a couch or furniture anymore, it is about providing the entire package to keep the customer throughout the entire journey.

This means that with regards to something like a sofa, which inevitably loses its plumpness, incorporating a variety of different services becomes invaluable, whether this is having foam cut to size or providing insurance packages, the importance of diversifying has never been more important, not just to keep that initial customer, but to bring newer customers onboard.

Keeping a customer nowadays means you have to keep them for life, by making life easier for them, which boils down to convenience.

Engaging customers online

If you are competing with online providers, you've got to beat them at their own game. Customers will research your products online, but you've also got to connect with them on their platform of choice to encourage them to visit your store.

This means that you should only provide a certain amount of accessibility online. This is a very difficult thing to get right, because you do not want to frustrate the customer.

But you can also engage with them to ask what they would like to see in the showroom and be rewarded with a gift that they must collect from the store.

When you create unique in-store events, this is the best way to bring people in during off-peak times. It is not just about getting them in to purchase things, but about engaging with the local community and allowing groups to hold events in stores.

Think about what couches are used for; in other words, almost everything! This means you could have someone doing a charity box set marathon in your store, or a book club.

Become a fountain of knowledge

A store is the most personal way to engage with people. When you struggle with off-peak times, one of the biggest benefits is that you get to spend more time with customers who come into the store.

This is where you can offer more personal advice to those people, but you can also offer demonstrations on how to clean the couch, and provide expert advice about furniture. When you start to engage with customers in this respect, you can increase activity which will boost sales.

The modest bricks and mortar store is not dying a death.

However as life returns to normal, we're valuing more convenience so having people come into the store is the one true way to justify its existence.

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