Economic benefits of furniture e-commerce

E-commerce is a special type of activity, which presupposes electronic purchasing or selling of products. This area is strongly connected with technological and Internet development. Today, e-commerce is a part of almost every market niche. The furniture industry didn't become an exception. Today, we are going to speak about the influence of e-commerce on the global furniture market and its benefits.

Background for e-commerce prosperity

The pandemic, which started in 2020, changes the world and people's minds. Many stores were closed, while purchasers were more likely to stay at home rather than going somewhere risking their health. As a result, the demand for furniture in specialized land-based shops significantly reduced.

At the same time, the desire of people to create more comfortable conditions for work and relaxation (mostly due to the total lockdown) made them search for alternative ways to buy desirable products. The same happened with furniture. Thus, if we can say the furniture e-commerce wasn't so well-developed before COVID-19, it became a new trend in 2020-2021.

Many people want to purchase various types of furniture to make their houses cozier without going outdoors. It was (and stays) a comfortable, fast, and safe way of shopping. From that point, the significant development of furniture e-commerce started.

The conditions, which appeared due to COVID-19, created new trends, thus, allowing manufacturers to develop new commercial opportunities. The following types of products experienced the greatest popularity among consumers:

• Furniture for kids
• Office chairs
• Desks for PC and laptops
• Study tables.

The production of the mentioned items grew three times by 2021. Another reason for the growing popularity of e-commerce was the creation of opportunities for furniture industry employees to work from home. For instance, in India, the WFH market is forecasted to grow to almost 3.5 billion USD by 2026 thanks to the fact that more and more companies integrate cloud-based solutions to work from home.

The further growth of furniture e-commerce is inevitable due to the constant development and accessibility of smartphones, Internet connection, and various supportive infrastructures as well as innovative technologies, which allow new categories to be added to electronic commerce platforms.

More and more people use phones and laptops to shop for furniture online

Key aspects of influence

The following benefits became accessible thanks to e-commerce development in relation to the furniture industry:

• More mediums to contact manufacturers. E-commerce gave a boost to various social media. Many of them are now used to contact manufacturers and retailers to make orders or find out certain information. At the same time, companies got a chance to get immediate feedback from clients to improve the quality of their work and choose the right direction for further development.
• Fewer unsatisfied clients. Thanks to the development of modern technologies used in e-commerce, people can now see 3D pics of their sofas or other items and even observe how certain furniture items would look in their interiors. As a result, there're fewer people with defeated expectancy, thus, fewer returns and a smaller number of pieces of negative feedback.
• More advanced customer assistance. With modern technologies integrated into furniture e-commerce, people can easily address managers to know the information they are interested in or consult an agent to choose the most suitable item. Modern consumers can use live chats, phones, and video calls.
• Easier buying/selling process for B2B retailers. In business, it's much easier to make deals using e-commerce. Thus, one can easily start their own furniture business by purchasing products from manufacturers or larger retailers.
• More sales. People today prefer less contact (especially if we take the officially ongoing pandemic into account), so they are more likely to buy something on the Internet than visit a brick-and-mortar store. Besides, e-commerce furniture platforms can offer a wider choice of products compared to land-based shops, which is also a significant advantage.

Along with obvious economic advantages for the furniture industry, the development of e-commerce also opens more career opportunities in the marketing, design, sales, IT, and many other industries.