Anybody got any experience of selling furniture online? I am thinking that a £799 leather sofa is probably a medium consideration item and one where there could be a lot of flitting from bricks to clicks. People probably want to test a sofa before buying as well as check out competitors. This sets up some web analytics challenges which I would be interested if anybody has thought through. One other thought is that it is difficult to offer fast delivery on items of furniture therefore will customers be disapponted if they are offered long delivery times?
ju2ltd: I have no experience selling, but I recently shopped for a new sofa online (for the wife) and ran up against those specific problems you mention. I went to eBay as well as a few discount sites and the pictures were usually poor quality. It was impossible to tell if the piece was comfortable or not. In short, if I'm going to drop $1000 on a sofa I want one that feels just right. And I couldn't 'test drive' the sofa since it was 1500 miles away. Also, delivery time was a huge factor; usually three to six weeks. I eventually went to a discount warehouse in our town and found the exact piece for half of the eBay price. I took it home that day. Not a sound business model for the internet, if you ask me.
If your talking in the UK & leather settee's even when people go into the store there is usually a 12 week delivery time, online with the right access to companies/suppliers you can offer comparisons/analysis & deal information they would be unlikely to find on foot going from store to store.
This post is a bit irrelevant to this post. But there was an article last year about a guy selling sofas on the internet, for what i can remember he was also mentioned at Forbes Business. He was roughly making about $5-10K a month of a website. Well i would just like to motivate you to keep on doing what you do.
Always amazed bu how quickly you can get some good advice on the forums. Thanks again. I will search for that Forbes Business article. Thanks,
I've dabbled and I can tell you that the delivery time is large because they order it on demand. The warehouse normally gets stocked within three to four weeks.
I tried looking for the article but could'nt find it. For what i know its poof chairs or foof chairs that he sells.
Yes...people usually concern on delivery service . 1) Price Concern in Delivery Cost 2) Delivery Duration 3) Good Condition when receive. We knew that everyone will know that furniture most likely is big and heavy . That why the price of delivery will not cheap . Second thing is delivery duration while most of furniture stall only able to target local only while the delivery time is shorter. People will think of the furniture condition while big and heavy furniture usually get damage when delivery process. That why is hard for furniture shop to target worldwide , and they start selling simple furniture which customers able to set up themselves with the ingredient provide.