“Never buy a couch or chair unless you’ve sat on it. You spend a lot of time there, so it needs to fit your body.”
So says “home maven Angela Matusik, founder of home decorating website Shelterrific.com” in a print and online article in Woman’s Day magazine.
Huh?
Shelterrific’s “friends” and major online retailers at Living Rooms Direct might beg to differ, as do a growing number of home furnishings retailers nationwide, and as do we at The Lively Merchant.
With manufacturers joining the eCommerce world, what choice do retailers have? Should they sit back and watch sales slide in their brick and mortar stores while allowing their once-trusted vendor partners to use them as third-class distribution partners? Should they ignore Ms. Jones’ late night browsing and buying binges?
A vibrant online presence and online selling is not only necessary, it’s vital, to the survival of today’s home furnishings retailer. New solutions for product imaging and cataloguing as well as innovative delivery services and flexible return policies are making this an achievable reality for many stores whose future may be otherwise bleak.
We don’t need “industry experts” telling the customer otherwise.
Researching purchases online is a great time saver and actually facilitates the purchasing process in the store should the consumer agree with Ms. Matusik and want to “try on” her furniture. However, having limited time, no strong opinion about what should be purchased, a good return policy, and trust in the owner of the web site all lead to consumers buying online. It will never matter again how much we think we can help a customer when they come to us, on our turf and allow us to work our magic on them. There are just too many ways and places consumers can buy from for us to stake a claim on a method we prefer. Some customers may like coming to our stores. Some may not. Businesses these days need to have the mechanism to serve customers however they want to be served – in the store, online, on the phone, or whatever the next method is.
Your closing paragraphs a live-on.