Website promotion for selling furniture: how to strengthen your online furniture business

In this article, we will consider the question: how to open an online furniture store and provide a minimum business plan for starting.

Small business is a trend that is rapidly gaining popularity in recent years. Each person is able to open his own business, you just need to arm yourself with knowledge and write a clear plan. Given the modern availability of any information, it will be quite easy to do this.

Market specifics

This article will focus on opening an online furniture store. According to research by Yandex. arquet and GfK Rus, the number of online shoppers in Russia continues to grow rapidly.

So, in the spring of 2021, almost every third Russian aged 16 to 55 has bought goods on the Internet in the last six months. Over the year this figure has grown by 20%, and since the spring of 2021 - by more than three quarters.

It should be noted that opening an online store is much easier organizationally than opening a retail outlet. So, to run the first one you need:

• register with the tax service;
• create a website (30-300 thousand rubles);
• purchase a product (40-100 thousand rubles );
• invest in promotion (the amount depends on promotion tools). At first, it is possible to work without hired labor.

To start a retail store, to all of the above, we add the rental of premises, repairs in it, uniforms and salaries for staff, the purchase of commercial equipment. In addition, an online store gives the owner more freedom in terms of location, product range and, in case of failure, business closure. But do not immediately think about the bad. Let's repeat: knowing the basic rules and having a little luck, you can easily get an online furniture store that brings in from 120 to 200 thousand rubles in profit per month.

Business Model

We propose to consider opening an online furniture store from several positions. Each of them has its own characteristics and algorithms of action.

Promotion of a furniture site. Thoughtful and efficient. With sustainable results. When not only traffic is growing, but also sales. We assure you: this is not a myth. SEO for an online furniture store or a furniture production website can bring noticeable profits, while recouping investments several times over. How to promote a furniture site correctly to see this profit? Let's tell you now!

The basis for promoting a furniture site is the correct semantic structure

Semantic structure based on competitor sites

We're talking about categories, subcategories and individual pages (sections). Categories should be selected and named so that they bring people from search.

The easiest way to properly categorize a site is to copy (in whole or in part) the structure of competitors who are already in the TOP. There are many options for determining the most successful search engine optimization (SEO) competitors. If you do not know how and do not want to use special SEO services, type in the search queries that best characterize your services (for example, "custom-made furniture") or your products (for example, "buy loft-style furniture") and see which sites are in the first place. It is advisable to check the TOP for at least several requests (loft-style furniture + loft-style bathroom furniture + loft-style wooden furniture).

As a rule, there is always a site that is at the top of the search results for two or more queries in a niche at once. You need to focus on it first of all. It is necessary to look at its list of categories and subcategories.

Important! Why do you think there is a name in the list of subcategories "For a girl", but "For a boy", for example, not (in fact, there is, but to see it you need to click on the "More" button and search a little)? The answer is below.

If you look at the queries related to the phrase "children's furniture" in the Yandex WordStat keyword selection service, you can see that the phrase "Children's furniture for girls" is searched quite often (the requests in the screenshot are sorted by frequency: from the most frequency at the top to less frequency slightly lower). If the phrase "Children's furniture for boys" is searched for, it is much less common than "for girls." This means that the category "For girls" is potentially more popular and should be closer to users. Such a structure will bring more profit. Let's note one more nuance: the category is named exactly like the key request in the Yandex service, that is, the way most users search for these products. Not "for a girl" and not "for girls."

Semantic structure based on keyword statistics

If copying competitors is not your approach, you can create a site structure based on the statistics of key queries and your assortment.

Let's say you only sell sofas. What categories should your site have?

Want to open your own online furniture store, but don't know how? Then visit us - we will show you where to start!

Why is an online furniture store convenient?

Due to the fact that you do not need a large area for its placement, the assortment of goods in an online store is much larger and more diverse than in a real store. The online store also has more functionality for communication, feedback, and work with clients and customers.

There are a lot of online furniture stores on the network today, but they are still very popular with buyers.

Therefore, one of the most profitable ways to open your business on the Internet is to create your own online furniture store.

Internet furniture store: how to open it?

Initially, you need to start with the most important thing - creating a website for a furniture store!

It is best to entrust this painstaking work to specialists!

Since this will be your business card, which depends on the attendance.

Do not forget to carefully write down contact information, terms of payment and delivery, as well as a detailed description of each item of the product.

What do you need at the initial stages of work, besides the very trading platform of an online furniture store?

• A warehouse will be needed where all the furniture will be stored, from where it will be possible to deliver to customers;
• As an office, maybe your own apartment, at least , at the initial stages of business development;
• There is another option, you can not look for a warehouse, but work directly with furniture suppliers.

Learn more about suppliers for online furniture store

The furniture market segment is rather underdeveloped in comparison with other countries. The volume of the furniture market in Russia occupies a share of less than 1% of the global one. The cost of buying furniture per person per year averages $ 50-100, while in Western countries this figure reaches $ 300-350 per person per year.

The structure of search demand for various types of furniture in the Yandex Wordstat service at the end of 2021:

Segment Shows RussiaMoscowYekaterinburgKazanUpholstered furniture3153615109388813243Children's furniture2720825681577412532Bathroom furniture1542256095033631189Office furniture92 6872246130751266Office furniture599499499499499499499499499499499p499499p

The table contains data from the Yandex Wordstat service for word combinations characterizing different types of furniture. The table shows only a trend, not taking into account a lot of peculiarities when conducting this kind of analysis. It can be very conditionally considered that the final figures correlate with the total number of people who were looking for information about this or that type of furniture on the Internet. The table does not pretend to be deep and infallible, our task is to get a general idea of ​​the distribution of demand.

Furniture online stores usually work according to the scheme "received an order from a buyer - sent it to production - took a product". As the business develops, the chain can become more complicated, it adds its own warehouse with popular furniture samples.

Target audience

Furniture buyers are mostly working people aged 25-50 years, owners of their own homes with an income of 30 trillion per month.

Competition

Competition in the furniture market on the Internet can be considered quite high. Already, in Moscow and large cities, there are several hundred online stores selling furniture. You can compete in the segment in the following areas:

• Price;
• Assortment ;
• Related services.

The rule applies here: in one thing you must be better than your competitors, in the rest you must match your competitors. In this case, you can count on the realization of a competitive advantage.

Premises

According to RBC, in 2021 the Russian e-commerce market grew by 60%. Revenue from all eCommerce sectors amounted to 1.66 trillion rubles. Record figures for almost 10 years have been achieved due to an increase in sales in all niches. The furniture segment showed significant growth. If earlier its share in total revenue was insignificant, now it is almost 10% - 120 billion rubles in 2021.

In this article, we will figure out how to create a modern and convenient online store selling interior items. We will analyze the features and structure of major players and share non-standard ideas.

Features of online furniture trading

E-commerce is penetrating different niches. People are actively buying furniture online. Interior items are not cheap, but the convenience and wide range of shops remove all objections.

4 trading features:

• High average check. Furniture costs tens of thousands of rubles, especially if it is made according to the author's sketch.
• Excessive requirements. Customers part with a lot of money, so they want to be sure of the quality of products and know about all defects in advance. Some brands do not hide flaws, but openly talk about problems and offer a discount. This means that the company is working honestly and is not trying to make money from deception.
• Long trade cycle. Buyers take a long time to compare offers. The less repulsive factors, the higher the chance that the user will place an order.
• Synchronization with offline. It is best to develop an online store based on an existing trading network. Customers will look at interior items, write down articles and visit showrooms to check quality. Many do not trust beautiful photographs on the Internet, they want to assess the condition on the spot.

The high cost and lack of spontaneity make selling difficult. In a highly competitive environment, retailers need to do their best. eCommerce projects are losing customers due to confusing working conditions and lack of service. Not only quality and low price play a role, there are additional factors that we will consider further in the article.

Target audience

To make the perfect online store, you need to know customer preferences and see a portrait of a typical target audience. Wooden rocking chairs and massive furniture for the loft are mostly ordered by men. Women buy beautiful and sophisticated interior items.

General furniture stores have a large target audience, but it is easy to assemble it into a single system:

• 70% women, 30% men. The stronger sex often trusts the choice of girls.
• Age 25-50. It was during this period that people actively make repairs.
• Devices: computers and smartphones. Collecting the basket is convenient from the phone, but it is easier to analyze the data on a widescreen monitor.
• Average and above average income. We have already noted more than once that high-quality furniture is expensive. Especially author's projects developed according to an individual technical assignment.

Depending on the product segment, the characteristics of the target audience may change, but the main criteria remain unchanged.