Helpful Home Furnishings Websites Improve Customer Shopping Experience
The perfect ending to the customer shopping experience results in a furniture purchase. In today’s online commerce world, whether or not they end up in your showroom and purchase depends entirely on your website. It’s not a matter of if they visited your Home Furnishings website, in nearly all cases, they did. It’s a matter of how the customer engages with your site and educates themselves as they travel on the purchase journey. The online experience shopping determines if you got the sale or your competitor did.
Today’s furniture shopper starts with initial research by comparing products, pricing and deal options online. They may spend minutes to months browsing home furnishing websites researching that perfect mattress, piece of furniture, or appliance.
Understanding what is important to consumers who are shopping for furniture, mattresses or appliances, keeping them engaged with your store’s brand and recognizing when they’re ready to buy not only provides you with valuable information, it saves time and resources. Along with those benefits, your store gains invaluable consumer data to influence future marketing and operational decisions while also building relationships.
“We had a very typical website, with products and a banner running across the top. The PERQ experience adds animation and movement, and things to attract the customer to interact with the site, to ask for information, and so it adds value,” says Justin Allen, Owner of the Mattress Store with four locations in Utah. “It also allows us to contact the customer and bring the experience into the store.” Allen’s stores can see a comprehensive browsing history for online shoppers who engage with interactive tools and incentives on the site, giving his team a cohesive consumer journey for each lead. Here’s a look at the insights they receive from PERQ data.
Follow the Online to In-Store Shopping Experience of a Mattress Shopper
A mattress shopper arrives on the Mattress Store site after a Google search from their desktop computer at 12:19 p.m. on a Tuesday. They browse and search mattresses, specifically “adjustable base queen mattresses.” The shopper is prompted to inquire about special pricing and enter contact information to receive a special offer via an online form powered by PERQ. The shopper views Tempur-Pedic mattresses and store locations on the website, spending just under 5 minutes total and viewing 9 different pages.
The mattress shopper returns to the site a few hours later and looks again at Tempur-Pedic mattresses. They launch the Design Style Assessment and search some more. Just 2 hours later, they return a third time to review search results. That same day, they arrive at the store and purchase a mattress and base for around $3,000. This converted lead visited the Mattress Store website three times, spending a total of 10 minutes and 53 seconds, and engaged with two interactive pieces of content on the website.
“This really does well for us and helps convert all these thousands of people who go to our website to an actual name and face, a customer and a sale,” Allen says. “When a prospect is going to buy a bed today, they’re choosing between store A and store B. Interacting with our website and online engagement tools, they have a great experience, which sends them right into the store.”
Actively Influence the Furniture Customer Shopping Experience
Take an active role on your website to influence the customer shopping experience by providing engagement opportunities, capturing data and nurturing the prospect along the way. Your website serves as your second showroom with the right technology, and engagement tools tailored to the customer experience provide valuable and timely information seamlessly.
Taking an active approach in how to leverage the website for in-store revenue is a big leap forward, versus passively waiting for the door to swing in-store,” says Scott Hill, Co-Founder of PERQ. “Get more data from your website and look for ways to get the consumer to give you more information, because it is valuable to them.”
Since leveraging interactive content on their website which utilizes artificial intelligence, Mattress Store prospects spend approximately 11 minutes longer browsing on the site than the average visitor and view approximately 7 more pages per session. With better engagement and more customer information, in the first 90 days Mattress Store’s lead-to-sales conversion rate reached over 22% — well above the industry average.
“The website technology helps funnel traffic in the desired direction,” Allen says. “For consumers to come in and we know their names, and they have an appointment along with understanding our products, prices and services — a better-educated customer comes to your door. We’ve had customers say they’re on their way and before I can notify the store, that customer is already in the store making a purchase.”
A Furniture Shopping Journey
A furniture shopper arrives on the Kemper Furniture site from their desktop computer on a Friday. They view the living room furniture page and complete the New Customer Welcome form. The lead chooses that they are shopping for “living room furniture” and is taken to the page to view the Nerviano Chocolate Recliner. The shopper is prompted to inquire about special pricing. They continue to browse and sort “living room furniture” and view several other recliners. The shopper spends 37 minutes viewing 35 pages during the first visit.
Two days later, the shopper returns via a personalized lead nurture email and completes the Design Style Assessment. They browse living room furniture for another 30 minutes. The shopper returns to the website for a third time three days later as a result of an automated email and clicks on “Man Fort Brown Recliner.” He completes the Special Pricing engagement feature, views the financing page, and returns to the “Man Fort Brown Recliner.” He also completes the AI-powered Request for More Information to get further details on the recliner, continues to browse living room furniture, and then looks at office furniture. About one month later, the online shopper visits the store and spends $2,737. Overall, the shopper spent a total of 90 minutes online before going to the store and making a purchase