How to Sell Furniture Online? A Step-by-Step Guide

It is quite evident that home is everyone’s comfort zone and people would love to live in luxury and sophistication in all parts of the home. A home describes a person’s character and taste. Most of the people wish to exhibit their elegance and comfort in their homes. Many would love have a collection of modern, fashionable, fancy and antique things according to their whims and fancies. We love to have a comfortable home, occupied by much-loved ones both persons and things.  

This is what makes the furniture industry booming one when compared to other businesses. 

The interior design plays a pivotal role in making a home pleasant. The latest trend in interior design seems to suggest that there is nothing like a dash of antiquity to lend beauty and elegance to a room or with full of modern designs. However, it was not the fact that everyone in the community was enamoured by the lavishness of the design a few decades ago. The current trend is entirely different as a house is embellished with some pieces of furniture to have magic look economically. And more over we like to have our living space filled with a good ambience to live in, eat-in, and sleep in. 

The current scenario necessitates everyone to have a physical store to showcase all the attractive pieces of furniture. However, there are also some other effective ways to reach your customer. Exhibiting the products directly to your customers through online furniture store is also viable mode of interaction. 

The question is how to sell furniture online? and is it possible to take my entire store online? Might be overwhelming to your mind? 

Here are some guidelines to help you to find answers for how to sell furniture online in the most appropriate way. 

 
Benefits of Creating an Online Furniture Store for your Business 

Having an online furniture store is lucrative. A financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something will be pretty profitable. Here are some of the benefits of creating a website to sell furniture online over other modes of selling. 

Make your footprints on the global market 

There are so many new choices in the aisles of physical stores and even traditional supermarkets to attract the local customers but not a broad range of customers as in online stores. 

There are many challenges in running it as a well-established neighbourhood store that can operate for years.  

Even though furniture stores seem to appear small because of their inability to exhibit and offer their products to a wide range of customers, online furniture store can scale your business to greater heights which can be rarely achieved by the ordinary stores. You are allowed to explore the international market to showcase the unique brands and attract more customers towards your store. 

Engaged customer services 

It is not feasible to engage the customers 24/7 a day due to so many practical constraints. Some special occasions grant the opportunity to transact business in stores till the late evening.   

You may have a habit of the closing the shop on Sundays and open only for a few hours on Saturdays. 

In contrary to these circumstances, online stores offer the unique opportunity to serve the customers round the clock besides addressing the issues of the customers which will bring in more customers to your brand. 

Save your maintenance costs 

Your online furniture store can service thousands of customers with unlimited resources. It is possible to assist virtual shoppers by mere one or two store managers. 

If you have a drop shipping service then it will be more beneficial.  In contrast to the stores, online stores will minimise the operational expenses such as rent and employee payroll. There is hardly any expenditure on computers, locker rooms and other utilities. 

Scalability 

An online store can sell almost a limitless number of items at a consistent rate.  In online stores we owe much to the employees to make sure they get a fair return for their creativity, flair and inspiration for selling the products across the world. People are in queues awaiting quality products available in the online store and to access them on a nominal rate. 

In the meantime, you may need to expand the number of products as seldom is it feasible in the stores. 

Here are some guidelines to set your online furniture store in an easy way 

1. Finding a Trustworthy Supplier/ Wholesaler 

If you have a manufacturing unit with well-trained furniture designers and product experts, then you can take it directly to the user. 

But everyone can’t manufacture on their own. It doesn’t mean that you are out of business or race. Still there are plenty of ways to sell furniture online. 

You can explore areas of contracting suppliers, finding wholesaler or finding a person who will drop or ship your products. 

In this case, the first thing that you need to do is locate a reputable supplier or trustworthy people on behalf of yourself to manufacture and rely on the product. 

In the furniture business, you can’t store the entire inventory in your apartment. If you try to create your own inventory also it gets little risky because we’re talking about large pieces of merchandise. 

Good profit is guaranteed if you can create the inventory but you mustn't forget about the storage house with perfect care and protection for the furniture. 

You have a chance for a short-term warehouse or storage facility as you grow.  

Based on the type of future plan to sell the products you need to find out your suitable wholesaler. You need to do a lot of groundwork while finishing a deal with them. You can look for new items from different wholesalers in your area. 

To build an ecommerce website, ecommerce themes are essential part to consider. So, buy the best ecommerce template for your furniture marketplace software like Portia to design the appealing store. 

2. Set up an Online Store Made Just for Furniture 

Having a website dedicated to furniture sales is one of the greatest strategies to win the market. 

You can sell the products on the third-party website like Amazon or eBay which is much easier to earn profit. But having your own online furniture store will add its advantage to you. Don’t jerk… nowadays you don't need a degree to possess knowledge on coding at all. 

You can just hire a developer; you can utilize the ecommerce platform to sell your products across the world.  

One fine thing with the ecommerce platform is that they will provide you everything that you want to sell furniture online such as hosting, design tools, marketing features, and payment gateways in order to start selling the products online immediately. There are plenty of ecommerce platforms available in the market. 

Do profound research on each one of them, before figuring out the best ecommerce platform that suits all your needs. 

 3. Clear Understanding on your Online Furniture Business 

More than finding the right ecommerce builder for your store, there are many more things you need to take care for being successful in the ecommerce business. 

Determine about the furniture category types 

Users may find it easy to fish out their exact needs if you have displayed the right product types. A number of people grouped or considered together owing to similar social position or standing in acquiring the wooden table or chair. Many people focus on decoration, embellishments, fringing, or cut-out design-work of the wood for example, the item that makes space livable. That's why the furniture is not limited as a seller needs to allow vending various kinds of products through the same business. The items are not limited but here are some of the types of furniture that you could choose to sell through your online store: 

• Home Decorative to make the house more livable 

• Shining Lamps & Lighting  

• Different Home Interiors like paintings, hangings 

• Unique Kitchen & Dining Sets 

• Housekeeping Items 

• Essential Hardware and Electricals 

• Comfort Chairs and recliners 

• Saving space like Dressers and wardrobes 

Continuous Uploading of your Products: 

The world is more competitive than you think. You need to keep yourself updated with current trends and new avenues to attract more customers.  

With technologies merging and the digital revolution moving in, a closer look at the modernity in displaying the furniture will certainly lead to have an edge over the contemporary rivals. Upload new products with high-quality images and give a glimpse of your inventory to impress your users. 

Choose an ecommerce website that can handle huge data uploading of products. 

Simple Navigation  

If you like to increase the sales figure, then definitely you need to pay more attention to provide simple yet powerful navigation to your users. It is one of the aspects of determining the user experience and user engagement on your website. 

Complete Payment Options: 

If you are into the online furniture business, you will grasp that adaptability as an essential feature.  

Now there are plenty of ways and means to make your payments like net banking, credit card/debit card-based payment, using UPI or get along with a payment gateway provider etc. 

Your customers can choose to pay anyone of them or even in the latest ways.  

Give them safe and identified payment portals to assist and enhance your brand trust right from the initial stages. 

Mobile App: 

We are in 2020, smart mobiles are inevitable in 2020. 

For online shopping, mobile devices are becoming the principal source to attract and engage more users. 

Not only for the furniture business but also for any business venture the mobile app is of paramount importance. 

The mobile application is vital to offer customers a smooth way to buy online and it offers a seamless experience to the users. You can also develop a mobile app separately using mobile application development services. 

Enduring with Proper Shipping Channels 

If you have your online furniture store then it's your responsibility to find a way to deliver your products to your customers. 

You need to pay more attention to certain types of furniture which take up a lot of space in a freight truck or sometimes whole sets may require even more room.  

It is the responsibility vested with the company to deliver their product in an excellent condition and at the right time as expected by the users. This is where you might face more challenges. Consider all the aspects while you choose your shipping carriers. Ensure that they must transport large and heavy items across long distances, and they must commit to preserving their condition with proper packaging methods.  

You need to have the right carriers and the right suppliers in order to get good orders that can flow through smoothly that customers will be satisfied. 

4. Online Marketing Tactics 

The prime area that you must excel is marketing and analyzing the various aspects concerning the various attributes of the material such as quality, design and difference in price, in comparison with the other companies. 

You need to figure out all the essential ways and try out the unique marketing strategies to see what works. But you need to build your ecommerce marketing tactics or strategies to stay ahead of the competition.  

• Impress with the Instagram story and YouTube Videos 

• Make effective use of Media Advertising and shine more 

• Boost your brand online presence 

• Play with sales figures etc... 

I think it is worth reading our blog 8 Key Success Factors and Innovative Strategise to gain success in Your Ecommerce Business to excel in the online furniture business. 

Conclusion 

Purchase of Ecommerce provides you with all the technical support to create a successful online furniture store. With our ecommerce platform, you can create exactly the kind of website that you prefer to have with all essential features and functionalities. 

You can endeavor with a customize ecommerce storefront as much as you like, make the process of orders easy to your customers and always keep the updated data by the track of your inventory.