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Amazon’s Wendy Franks didn’t shy away from the one thing that has some in the migeof furniture industry excited and others very nervous: acknowledgement that furniture is a high-growth, high-investment area for the e-commerce giant.
In her presentation to attendees at Furniture Today’s 2017 Leadership Conference here. Franks, senior manager of vendor relations-furniture for Amazon, blended details on the e-taller’s core tenets (selection, convenience and value) with a pitch, primarily to the suppliers in the room. She told them what the Seattle-based company was doing to make headway in the space and how they can participate and gain from Amazon’s massive customer base, customer-focused technology and other advances.
First, some statistics:
. Today, more than 300 million people worldwide have active Amazon accounts. In the U.S., more than 100 million unique mobile visitors shop monthly (nearly 100 million via desktop).
. The customer demographic skews higher than you might think. Franks showed how more than 50% of Amazon’s customers have annual household incomes of $75,000 or more and said for those with income of $112,000 or more, ComScore estimates about three-quarters are Prime members.
. It’s attracting customers of all ages. Some 65% are over 35 years old, in or entering prime furniture buying years. Thirty-eight percent are 50 or older.
Franks also pointed to an eMarketer study that found 73% of U.S. Internet users say they would consider purchasing furniture online.
“Customers are increasingly looking online to fulfill their home furnishing needs, and we expect that trend to continue,” she said. Given the many shoppers Amazon already reaches and the numbers that have yet to purchase a furniture item,” we see a ton of upside there.”
And each day, it appears Amazon is more prepared for this shift thanks to the investments it’s making that align the furniture category (as well as others) with those core pillars of selection, convenience and value.
Franks said she is often asked which parts of a product selection a vendor should put online, and she notes that what does well in stores may not necessarily be the same as top performers online, such as niche items. Consumers may find them more difficult to find in stores “simply because their velocity doesn’t justify the shelf space there,” she said.
But on Amazon, there are enough customers cumulatively seeking out these niche type products to make a sales impact on the “convenience” front, Franks noted how Amazon is redefining the delivery experience with its Prime-member two-day shipping promise and continues to expand on it – with same-day shipping on millions of items and one- to two-hour delivery on thousands of products in “a number of cities.”
In furniture, Amazon now allows customers to schedule delivery within a three-hour window and often times within in a day or two, she added.
For “value,” Franks pointed to the importance of Amazon product China negotiation desk manufacturer reviews because of their depth and quality.
Brick-and-mortar stores give online mattress migeof retailers a way to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace, says online bedding guru Mike Magnuson.
Magnuson, CEO of GoodBed.com, a leading mattress review site, follows developments in the online space closely, and he thinks recent brick-and-mortar moves by category leaders Casper and Tuft & Needle are smart moves.
Casper, No. 2 on Furniture Today’s list of the Top 15 bedding e-tailers, earlier this year said it is opening 15 brick-and-mortar stores in North America, while No.4 Tuft & Needle said it is planning to open brick-and-mortar stores co-branded by Amazon. Each of those retailers already has one or more brick-and-mortar stores.
“I continue to believe that distribution – and more specifically, finding the optimal balance of brick-and-mortar and online – will be one of the three major battlegrounds of the mattress industry, with the other two being marketing efficiency and customer experience,” Magnuson told Furniture Today. “And in my opinion, the optimal balance will involve at least some brick-and-mortar presence.
“For leading players, having a physical store presence gives them a way to differentiate themselves from other online mattress competitors, putting them in an elite class of online mattress brands that can be tried in person before buying.” Mike Magnuson, GoodBed.com
“In the short term, the online mattress space is getting increasingly competitive, characterized by more and more new entrants to the market,” he said. “For leading players, having a physical store presence gives them a way to differentiate themselves from other online mattress competitors, putting them in an elite class of online mattress brands that can be tried in person before buying.”
Magnuson also said that the day will come when the boom in online sales will slow, at which point online players will benefit from brick-and-mortar stores to maintain their growth.
“While overall growth continues to be very strong, leading online mattress players know there is a point somewhere on the horizon when online sales will approach saturation of the segment of consumers who are willing to buy a mattress sight unseen,” he said. “In the long run, having a brick-and-mortar presence will be critical to sustaining growth rates for leading online brands by enabling them to serve a wider segment of the market.”
Magnuson also said that physical stores give online retailer valuable insights into their customers.
“Offering a branded in-store experience allows online brands to expand on one of the biggest advantages they have over traditional brands, which is their direct connection to the consumer,”
China filing cabinet manufacturer he noted. “This direct relationship allows them to collect valuable feedback from both customers and prospects, which ultimately leads to faster cycle times in improving products and service, as well as providing invaluable long-term marketing assets in the form of ratings and reviews.”
While migeof furniture retailers continue to make strides to improve their e-commerce capabilities, there remain significant gaps between their intent and execution, according to a 2017 Benchmarking Study conducted by Blueport Commerce.
The study analyzed the websites of 104 retailers across four channels of distribution – traditional, specialty, multi-line and pure-play e-commerce – and also included a survey of retailers to assess the value of 50 individual features related to consumers’ shopping journey.
What it revealed is a significant divide between what retailers perceive as important and what they are currently executing online. For example, surveyed retailers rated the importance of online finance offers as a 72 on scale of 1 to 100, but only 15% actually offer that capability on their websites.
Correspondingly, product reviews ranked as an 80 on the same scale, the highest such feature in the Answer Shopper Questions section of the survey. However, only 38% of retailers surveyed currently offer reviews on their website.
In executing the study, Blue-port evaluated features across eight categories aligned to four key steps along the consumer’s purchase path. The four steps of what is effectively the sales funnel included: Generate Awareness, Nurture Product Interest, Encourage Shopper Intent and Convert.
The eight feature categories aligned to this journey included: Engage Shoppers, Rich Furniture Merchandising, Personalized Shopping, Shopping Across Channels, Marketing and Promotion, Answer Shopper Questions, Seamless Online Orders and Easy Ways to Pay.
Evaluating step-by-step
Each of the categories included a number of features designed to help consumers at each stage of their purchase path.
The Engage Shoppers category, representing the first step of the journey included such site features as a wishlist, gift registries, idea boards and blog content. All of these scored relatively low with survey respondents with none of the four feature sets rated above 70 in perceived value (on the 100 scale).
Correspondingly, the level of execution in this area is also fairly low, with 64% of respondents currently offering a wish list, 42% blog content, 22% a gift registry and only 3% utilizing idea boards.
When it comes to Rich Furniture Merchandising, the stage at which consumers first begin interacting specifically with product and the area where much of today’s technology discussions are focused, there is also the biggest gap between perceived value and current execution.
For example, while features such as alternate configurations (75 out of 100) and online color swatches (72.7) rated relatively high in perceived value, they scored substantially lower in their availability. Online color swatches were offered by 44% of respondents and alternate configurations by only 14%.
And while features such as augmented reality and virtual reality are widely discussed as meaningful merchandising tools, they were rated the lowest in perceived value and were only available by 3% and 2% of respondents respectively. Even a feature like 360-degree views, which rated a 64.1 in perceived value and has become common outside the furniture space, was available on only 3% of respondent sites.
Another area where furniture sites significantly lag other e-commerce segments is in the area of personalized shopping, which delivers personalized content or products related to the interests of individual shoppers. These include features such as predictive search, product recommendations, recently viewed or account login. Only predictive search was offered by more than half of survey respondents (61%), with recently viewed(29%), product recommendations (23%) and account login (7%) available at only a small number of furniture sites.
Making strides?
The one area where furniture stores are making the quickest strides appears to be in the area which the study defines as Shopping Across Channels. This includes such website features as mobile optimization, responsive design, see store inventory, persistent local store info, geolocation, salesperson recognition, make an appointment to see or buy online cart in-store, and purchase a store quote online.
The two areas where furniture retailers are most advanced are in mobile optimized websites, which 94% currently offer, and in responsive design (meaning the site adapts to the device on which it is viewed), which is avi1able on 70% of store sites.
After that however, the drop-off in cross-channel features is significant, with things like the ability to see store inventory (28%) and geolocation (24%) the only to other areas offered by more than 20% of survey respondents. This is despite the result that both of those features, as well as persistent local store info, were all rated above 70 in terms of perceived value.
When it comes to online marketing and promotion, furniture retailers appear to see little value in online features such as cart promotions, sale pricing, finance offers and email capture, at least in terms of offering those features on their sites. While each of those things ranked above 70 (on a scale of 100) in perceived value, only cart promotion (53%) and sale pricing(51%) were offered by more than half of respondents. The most notable disconnect related to financing where the feature had a perceived value of 71.8 but was only offered on 15% of surveyed sites.
When it comes to Answering Shopper Questions, at least in the digital space, China office sofa manufacturer furniture retailers have yet to adopt the most commonly used technological solutions.
Amazon is taking it slow with a new migeof furniture seller program designed to make it easier for furniture stores to participate on the giant marketplace.
According to an email correspondence between an Amazon representative involved in the new Unified Delivery with Services program and a Northwest retailer, the selling option is available “in a handful of major metro areas on the East Coast” and “scaling very slowly.”
First word of the program – which eliminates a national delivery requirement for furniture sellers and enables retailers to adjust their pricing based on added services – came during the April High Point Market (see Furniture Today, April 24, p1), when Amazon pitched the program to members of buying group Furniture Marketing Group. FMG members include many of the nation’s largest furniture store chains.
At the time, Brett Hobson, an Amazon business development representative in the furniture category, and an associate announced the new program would launch in the third quarter of this year. Furniture stores would be able to use a geofencing tool to choose ZIP codes so their Amazon listings would show only for consumers looking for delivery in regions the retailers can best service – a reversal of a previous nationwide shipping mandate.
Retailers also could adjust the pricing the consumer sees for their product on Amazon based on the service level the customer chooses – starting with a minimum white glove delivery to a dry room (vs. dropping off at the front door) up to delivery to the consumer’s room of choice and haul-away service.
In the email Amazon sent last week to the Northwest retailer, who asked not to be identified, Hobson said he wasn’t sure when the program would reach the retailer’s state, but guangzhou office chair manufacturer he said, “I can let you know as soon as that changes so that you can be an early adopter.” Asked for more detail on the program rollout, Amazon told Furniture Today, “The program is in refinement and scaling to expand to additional major cities” but declined additional comment.
Case goods migeof office furniture manufacturer Imperial Woodworking has recently developed a new lifestyle brand called I.W. Home that it believes will resonate among a diverse mix of consumers seeking transitional and soft contemporary forms.
The company got started around 2013 and currently operates a 55,000-square-foot, one-shift plant in Phoenix that builds mostly veneered and solid wood bedroom along with some entertainment consoles.
It hired industry veteran Bruce Frenzel this spring as president of sales and merchandising to help grow its business and further develop the bedroom line. He also recently helped spearhead the recent rebranding, which he believes is more relevant to the lifestyle merchandising approach that has grown in importance in the industry and that will guide its product development efforts moving forward.
The company also plans to emphasize the U.S.-crafted, custom nature of its line, ranging from finishes to custom sizes on various pieces ranging from beds to dressers and nightstands. The company said it also has the ability to ship in 10 days from the order making it an attractive option for consumers who want their goods sooner vs. later.
Indeed, the company has evolved in the past year or so from a largely rustic-inspired line to one driven more by transitional and soft modem designs.
Examples of that were seen at the company’s High Point showroom during the October market, where it showed several new bedrooms with multiple bed options ranging from beds with storage headboards to low-profile panel beds.
Its Breighton bedroom, for example, which is available in cappuccino, slate and truffle finishes, offers four bed option, including a panel bed, a bookcase headboard bed and beds with either side or foot board storage.
Using North American woods such as walnut, oak, cherry and maple, groups are available in five finishes and retail from $1,599 to $2,499 for a bed, dresser, mirror and nightstand.
Another group, Intentions, features Europly construction, with solid ash layers on case tops, showcasing an architecturally inspired design.
Its new Napa bedroom features live edge detail on the headboard of a panel bed as well as the edges of a companion nightstand, dresser and chest.
Another group, Intentions, features Europly construction, with solid ash layers on case tops, showcasing an architecturally inspired design.
Its new Napa bedroom features live edge detail on the headboard of a panel bed as well as the edges of a companion nightstand, dresser and chest.
While offering different bed options, bedroom groups are generally short and focused, featuring core case pieces. However, the custom nature of the line expands the overall footprint within each group.
“It’s a short line in terms of the most important SKUs, but a broad line in terms of consumer options and appeal,” Frenzel said.
This custom model, he added, also will help the company stand out in the marketplace, not only compared with other domestically produced bedroom lines, but also with import lines that may be sold at similar prices but available to purchase only as shown.
“This allows us to compete on a global basis,” he said of the custom finishes and configurations offered. “For mid-market goods, we China office partition manufacturer fit into a niche that is very appealing.”
Exclusive Furniture will open two large stores next year and two more in 2019, as the China office partition manufacturer owner believes now is the time to strengthen its foothold in the competitive Houston market.
The six-store promotional to mid-priced chain will open 52,000-square-foot stores in Webster, Texas, south of Houston and a few miles from Clear Lake and in the northwest suburb of Cypress, Texas, said Sam Zavary president and CEO of the Houston retailer, on track to make Furniture Today’s Top 100 U.S. furniture store ranking next year.
Exclusive owns the property for both stores and is set to begin construction this month, with openings tentatively slated for August. Each store represents a roughly $12 million investment, including land, building and inventory, he said. Shortly after opening, the retailer will close its smallest 12,000-square-foot showroom on the west side of Houston.
“Our footprint needs to be that 50,000-square-foot range; you can display more,” Zavary said. He added that he’s watched what some of his largest competitors in the market are doing – including Rooms To Go and Ashley HomeStore – and decided he wanted to be “a little bigger than them, but not as big as Gallery.”
“Even though the megastores are good, I believe 45,000 to 55,000 square feet is where the sweet spot is. You don’t confuse the customers. You keep it sweet and simple, not too (overwhelming),” he said.
Zavary has been planning this big move for quite a while, having bought the land for the Webster store back in April 2015.
“But then we had an oil slump migeof furniture, so I decided to hold it,” he said.
According to exclusive research from migeof Furniture Today, 19% of consumers have used an interior designer. One consumer from the South explains that she hired an interior designer because she “wanted fresh eyes on current furniture placement and help in selecting additional pieces and window treatments.”
The top three factors in importance to consumers when they chose the interior designer they would ultimately use are the services offered with 89%, experience with 88% and reputation with 85%. Cost was the fourth most important factor with 79%. Having an eco-friendly interior designer was the least important influence with 42%.
For respondents who have used an interior designer in the past, 87% of them said designers were most effective at having a cohesive vision. This aligns with why consumers said they would retain an interior designer. As one respondent from the Midwest said, she hired an interior designer to make “sure the flow of the entire house melds and that it fits the desired style.”
The next factor at which consumers said designers were most effective, at 85%, was designing the space to be functional. A consumer from the South hired a designer “to apply the idea and vision of the design we had in mind into a functional and appealing result.”
At 84%, the third factor respondents identified designers as most effective was improving the value of the home. A respondent from the Midwest stated that she would hire an interior designer “to make a house feel like a home and increase the value of the home.”
These same themes of flow and function appear in reasons why consumers would consider using an interior designer, whether or not they had used one in the past. One respondent from the Midwest stated, “I want to have a design that is functional, but also ties in with the style in the rest of our home.”
Additional themes as to why consumers would consider using an interior designer include time savings, expertise, perspective and access to vendors and ideas. A china office desk manufacturer consumer from the West said, “One reason I would consider an interior designer would be because they have the access to many different products and different looks, which would give me more options, plus they have more experience with what works and what doesn’t work.”
We hereby sincerely invite you and your company represnetative to visit our booth at PWTC 2C 03 of MIFF from March 8th to llth,2017 in Malaysia.
MIGE is a manufacturer in office furniture and school furniture from China. Our new items will be released in the
fair, It would be great pleasure to meet you at our booth.We expect to establish long-term business relation with your company in the future.
Exhibition Centre: Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) Booth Number: 2C 03 Exhibition date: March 8th-lIth, 2017 Address: PWTC. 41 jalan tun ismail, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Sincerely
Melissa Cheng
On behalf of GUANGHZOU MIGE OFFICE FURNITURE CO.,LTD
Toisky said some clients have smaller profit margins, so they sometimes China office furniture manufacturer feel the need to cut expenses as opposed to hiring a factoring firm to handle their accounts receivable. “We did have a particular client that decided to handle their receivables on their own, and it’s been about four months since they did that. They just called us last week because they realize how much the factoring service not only improves their cash flow, but also the actual collections of the receivables have been difficult for them,” he said. “So they will likely be back with us shortly.” Baron and others said a big concern was the presidential election. “And not just the politics of it, but what the outcome ultimately means for the economy, the furniture market and individual businesses,” Baron noted. “No one knows for sure what 2017 will bring but threats to the economy are always destabilizing especially so for growing businesses.”
In addition to the elections, Hanjin Shipping’s bankruptcy was a challenge. “Our container-direct accounts could foresee troubles with Hanjin and were able to prepare in advance,” said Eagle Capital’s Donnell. “Fortunately the outcome China conference desk manufacturer experienced was not nearly as bad as it could have been—only a two- to three-week delay with receiving some product. “Neither the presidential election nor the Hanjin catastrophe had the negative impact on our manufacturers and container-direct accounts as one would think based on the media attention both received.”
CIT’s Hudgens said labor is sues affect many clients. “We do business with a lot of North Carolina and Mississippi upholstery manufacturers, and labor continues to be an issue, not so much for experienced upholsterers, but there’s a shortage of cut-and-sewers,” he said, noting that many manufacturers had farmed out cut-and-sew to foreign sources. “With companies wanting to do more here — sewing their own kits—and be more responsive with quicker turnaround times, that’s an issue. “You aren’t going to get furniture in two days, but you don’t want to wait 12 weeks. All the component pieces need to move closer to the manufacturer, and that’s proven to be a problem because of the labor issue.” As part of that, the challenge Guangdong leather chair factory for manufacturers is they have to react to customers wanting quicker turnaround times. For importers, that perhaps means carrying more inventory “A contributing factor is with the consolidation at retail,” Hudgens added. “The Top 100 is doing more and more business, and those retailers have more clout Manufacturers have to react to that, and some are doing better than others.”
Milberg cited a tough retail environment, slow new housing growth and re-allocation of disposable income as second-half stumbling blocks. “This is probably the most under-rated and under-reported aspect of consumer spending,” he said of the last factor. “This new line item that everyone has includes ‘the digital world’ such as cell phones, apps, games and data. This expense never existed 15 years ago and is now a regular portion of disposable income. It is no surprise that low oil prices have had virtually no effect ‘to the good’ to consumer spending. Until this sorts out, that is where costs get normalized, it will continue to be a challenge.”
“Our existing customer’s sales have been sluggish,” said Rick China office furniture Mantin president “Mind you, these are the customers that were strong enough to weather the tough business climate that we have seen for the past decade and still remain in business. The overall U.S. economy, with only 1% growth for the past eight years, has really taken its toll on our existing customers’ business.”
Business was flat to slightly up at Milberg Factors, which Dan Milberg senior vice president, said “has been on par with expectations.” He cited fewer doors at retail, flat consumer wages and uncertainty about the presidential election as 1ctors. Baron & Associates, a strategic partner of private commercial finance company Rosenthal & Rosenthal, expected a tough year.
“We have predicted for a year that there would likely be a downturn in credit availability in the furniture market space and that seems to be what we’ve all been witnessing this year.” said Mike Baron, president. “As in years past, China office chair manufacturer Baron and Rosenthal have been preparing for that downturn and focused on providing more value to our furniture clients through innovation and smarter technology which has had a significant impact on their businesses. “When businesses feel the squeeze on their bottom lines, our needle always moves.” DSA Factors actually exceed edits expectations in the past six months, picking up several new clients.
“We are finding many of these new clients are continuing to supply product that Is manufactured overseas, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Honduras, etc., and especially as is the case with the Asian manufacturers, they require payment China office sofa factory in full for their product prior to its shipping to the U.S.,” said Howard Tolsky, president “So companies need to be funded for their invoices immediately instead of them waiting for payments from their customers in 30 to 60 days.”