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WHY YOU MUST SHOW FURNITURE PRICING ON YOUR WEBSITE. PERIODBy Erika Sparrow
February 2019 |
I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with retailers about showing prices on your website. There are two main reasons they don’t want to do this.
The first reason:
The first reason:
“I don’t want my competition knowing my pricing and I don’t want the consumer to showroom/webroom me.”
It wasn’t so long ago that Best Buy was losing huge amounts of business to Amazon because of price shopping. Do you know what they did to stop it?
A new CEO came in to Best Buy and his first order of business was:
A new CEO came in to Best Buy and his first order of business was:
“We’ll match or beat any price on any exact item from any retailer or e-commerce platform”.
Can you guess what happened, the business turned around instantly. As of March 2018, they’ve had great earnings.
Why wouldn’t you do the same thing and promote it prominently on your website and all your marketing messaging? Match or beat any price on the exact same SKU, delivered to your delivery area.
Statista reports that 24.19MM consumers bought furniture online. They did it because the products had pricing on the website so they could decide if they could afford it. You may think that’s only 7.5% of the population, but if you look at this number (as it relates to the population) and you can consider an actual “buying customer”, that number percentage jumps dramatically to 16.5%.
And according to eMarketer, “Retail ecommerce sales of furniture and home furnishings will grow 16.4% in 2017 to reach $35.95 billion and will total $62.36 billion by 2021.”
Why wouldn’t you do the same thing and promote it prominently on your website and all your marketing messaging? Match or beat any price on the exact same SKU, delivered to your delivery area.
Statista reports that 24.19MM consumers bought furniture online. They did it because the products had pricing on the website so they could decide if they could afford it. You may think that’s only 7.5% of the population, but if you look at this number (as it relates to the population) and you can consider an actual “buying customer”, that number percentage jumps dramatically to 16.5%.
And according to eMarketer, “Retail ecommerce sales of furniture and home furnishings will grow 16.4% in 2017 to reach $35.95 billion and will total $62.36 billion by 2021.”
Williams-Sonoma and its portfolio of brands like West Elm and Pottery Barn sees roughly half of retail sales coming through ecommerce (52.8%).
The second reason
The second reason
“I don’t want to price or sell special orders.”
This one confounds me. Think about this. Amazon, Wayfair and all the pure e-commerce platforms ONLY sell special orders. They don’t have retail stores and people buy their products without touching, felling, or sitting in them. They buy based on an image and description, that’s it.
My position is straightforward: put everything you have open to buy on your site. Yes, thousands of SKUs and price them all.
More than 80% of consumers want to buy local. When they search, and you don’t have what they’re looking for, their search results divert to those companies that do: Wayfair, Amazon, Houzz, Overstock and others that have thousands, if not millions of SKUs, that are all transparently priced and easy to buy online.
Over 80% of people prefer to shop local, but they won’t if you don’t show, tell and sell everything you have “open to buy”. The rationale is simple. When people search for that item they want, you show them you either have it in stock, on the floor or that you can get it for them. If not, Wayfair, Amazon, Houzz, Overstock and others would gladly take their money.
We run hundreds of furniture websites and I can share with you that those companies that show pricing and sell online do much better than those who don’t.
If the numbers/predictions stated above are correct, by not doing this your business could quickly suffer the consequences with a tremendous loss of sales.
My position is straightforward: put everything you have open to buy on your site. Yes, thousands of SKUs and price them all.
More than 80% of consumers want to buy local. When they search, and you don’t have what they’re looking for, their search results divert to those companies that do: Wayfair, Amazon, Houzz, Overstock and others that have thousands, if not millions of SKUs, that are all transparently priced and easy to buy online.
Over 80% of people prefer to shop local, but they won’t if you don’t show, tell and sell everything you have “open to buy”. The rationale is simple. When people search for that item they want, you show them you either have it in stock, on the floor or that you can get it for them. If not, Wayfair, Amazon, Houzz, Overstock and others would gladly take their money.
We run hundreds of furniture websites and I can share with you that those companies that show pricing and sell online do much better than those who don’t.
If the numbers/predictions stated above are correct, by not doing this your business could quickly suffer the consequences with a tremendous loss of sales.
If you’d like to know more about how to show, tell and sell more online and in-store, reach out to me and let’s have that conversation.
erika@imagineadv.com
(509) 220-9694
erika@imagineadv.com
(509) 220-9694
