Sell More Home Furnishings & Accessories with Compelling Copy
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Selling furniture and accessories is big business. Furniture and home furnishings stores generate over $114 billion U.S. dollars worth of sales each year. As disposable income has increased, the home furnishings industry has enjoyed considerable growth. In 2021, furniture store sales alone are forecast to reach $68 billion!
Furniture and housewares are big business in the U.S., both for in-person shopping and e-commerce sites.
With generous profit margins and a society that values the comfort and beauty of their home, the opportunity for home furnishings sellers is immense. But succeeding may not be as easy as it sounds. Where there’s good money to be made, there’s also abundant competition.
To stand out, home furnishings sellers — including many who export their furnishings from countries like India and Germany — must use top-notch marketing with quality copywriting.
To sell home furnishings in today’s competitive market, sellers must use top-notch marketing with quality copywriting.
Whether selling home furnishings in a brick-and-mortar store or online via an e-commerce site, or exporting your products abroad, you need a solid online presence. And quality copywriting is essential to success. It is the proven method for accomplishing three primary goals:
While a growing share of furniture and home accessories are sold online, “consumers still prefer to see their options in person,” according to AdRoll Group. “This presents a unique opportunity for local retailers: how can they use their customers’ true desire to buy furniture locally while offering the convenience and excitement of an e-commerce store?”
Most people do at least some of their initial research online, even if they ultimately choose to make their purchase at a brick-and-mortar store.
Whether you’re selling home furnishing products online or in a traditional store, you still need marketing to attract customers.
“A piece of furniture is the kind of big-ticket item that people are still a little squeamish about buying online,” according to Digital Genius Ecommerce. “That doesn’t mean, however, that a strong online presence doesn’t have a pivotal role to play in moving a customer down the furniture sales funnel.”
Mike Root in Furniture World magazine writes, “You can tell your story so completely that when customers walk through the door, all they are coming to do is touch the product, sit on the sofa and finalize the sale.”
With so many consumers turning to the internet to research and often buy their home furnishings, a comprehensive website is imperative for retailers. If you already have a website, but it’s not effective, know that you’re likely losing customers to your competitors every day. Scary thought, right?
According to Blueport Commerce, “Digital marketing is critical to driving traffic to your furniture store by creating brand awareness and targeting shoppers who are interested in purchasing your products.”
Drive sales in your online furniture store with compelling product copy and photos.
Your web content, including the copywriting and photos, must be compelling. And your overall website must be professional so that it serves your brand well and gives visitors confidence that your business can be trusted.
When someone searches online for a home furnishings store, they likely have a specific type of product in mind – a couch, a bedroom set, a coffee table. Your visitors want to see actual items in photos and read their engaging descriptions. In fact, if they’re doing research, they’re likely to read every everything they can about an item they’re considering for purchase, so you want to choose your words with care.
A skilled copywriter with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for home décor can help you improve the visibility of your products while at the same time building your connection with the customer.
Consider this appealing description of a collection of home furnishings called Chateau on Pottery Barn’s site:
“Grounded in a sense of touch, our new Chateau look uses velvet, linen, fringe and bronzed finishes to forge a relaxed, yet elegant home.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Pottery Barn combines copy that is virtually poetic with eye-catching photos to move products.
Williams Sonoma does a wonderful job describing each of its home furnishings. Here’s their description for a simple coffee table.
“The minimalist style and linear profiles of midcentury design inspired our Kosa coffee table. An antiqued-brass inlay accents the top while the base complements the uniform lines. Masterfully crafted, the coffee table has a smooth finish that accentuates the wood’s natural grain and tonal depth.”
Williams Sonoma offers appealing descriptions and tons of details to help the customer feel comfortable buying furnishings online.
This description, which paints a lovely picture in the visitor’s mind, is then complemented by a dozen bullets that give dimensions, weight, materials, product’s country of origin (Vietnam; who knew they make furniture?) and more. Clearly Williams Sonoma understands the value in providing an appealing description and including all the details that a buyer could want to know. You’ll likely want to do the same.
In creating product descriptions for home furnishings and accessories, you or your copywriter should:
Online sales of home accessories have been steadily increasing each year.
Once you have optimized your website, you may want to create additional marketing tools to further drive web traffic and increase sales. Consider trying these promotional items:
A website is your primary marketing tool, but it shouldn’t be the only one.
Even customers who prefer to buy furniture in a brick-and-mortar store often begin their research online.
Although traditional brick-and-mortar retailers still generate the majority of sales in the home furnishings industry, U.S. internet sales in the broad housewares and home furnishings category totaled $19.2 billion in 2016 according to Fung Global Retail & Technology. That’s a significant chunk of the market and is expected to only increase.
A robust website, continually updated and enhanced, is critical to remaining competitive in the furniture and household goods industry.
“The global online home goods market will likely grow further as tech-savvy millennials age and start families, and baby boomers become more comfortable purchasing online.”
For retailers and distributors of home furnishings, this upward trend emphasizes the need to establish and maintain an effective online presence. A robust website, continually updated, expanded and enhanced is vital to remaining competitive. Work with a professional marketing copywriter who knows the home furnishings market to optimize your online presence and maximize sales.
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Get a no-obligation quote here.
Susan Greene
Professional Copywriter
Affordable Rates
Orlando, Florida
floridacopywriter@gmail.com
(407) 578-5528
