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How to Attract Customers to Your Online Furniture Store

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Selling furniture on the internet can present a bit of a challenge to businesses. Most people prefer to buy furniture in person since it gives them the opportunity to see the furniture for themselves before they purchase it.

That being said, you can jumpstart an online furniture store if you take the right steps and know how to attract customers.

It doesn’t matter if you have a furniture storefront and plan on using your online site to give it a boost or want to sell your furniture online exclusively. You can turn your business into a big success if you learn how to market yourself properly.

Here are some ways to attract new customers to your online furniture store.

Build a Furniture Website That Functions Properly

The first thing you’re going to want to do when starting an online furniture store is build a website that actually works.

That might seem like common sense. But there are a lot of online retailers that skimp on website design to save money and end up with a website that doesn’t function well at all.

If customers come to your website and it doesn’t load quickly, they’re probably not going to stick around for very long. Or if they visit your website and can’t see any of the pictures you have put up of your furniture, it’s not going to entice them to buy anything from you.

Think of your website as one of your employees. If you had an employee who didn’t work quickly, wasn’t able to tell people about your products, and struggled to communicate well with others, would you keep them on your team?

You most likely would not. So you shouldn’t accept that kind of behavior from your website, either.

You should build out a website that works, test it often, and take feedback from your customers to make changes to it. You want everyone to enjoy a great customer experience when they browse your website.

View here for a great example of what an online furniture store should look like.

Make It Easy for Potential Customers to Contact You

If all goes according to plan, your new customers should be able to find the furniture they want to buy on your site and order it without any help from a human.

But there are going to be times when your customers need to get into contact with you, and they need to be able to do it without jumping through hoops.

Here are a few things you should include on your online furniture store’s website to attract new customers:

  • Your phone number on the home page displayed as prominently as possible
  • A contact form that allows people to reach out to you through email
  • A chat feature that gives people the chance to get answers to their questions quickly

By providing people with these three options, you will give them everything they need to contact you in a variety of different ways. They’ll appreciate the fact that you want to hear from them.

Figure Out How to Attract Customers Using Targeted SEO Strategies

When people search for online furniture stores in your area, will your website pop up?

You can have the best website in the world, but if people don’t find it when they’re searching for stores in your area, it won’t do you much good.

You should work with an SEO company that can ensure your website will appear when people search for, say, “online furniture stores in New York” or wherever your home location is.

It can be difficult to incorporate the latest SEO techniques into your digital strategy. If you aren’t willing to take the time to do it on your own, you can hire companies to use these techniques so that your website ranks high on search engines.

Include Useful Information on Your Website

When people come to your website, you want to do more than just sell them furniture. You also want to provide them with useful information on furniture that they will be able to utilize when thinking about making a purchase.

It’s a good idea to start a blog on your website that provides furniture-related content that people can use. Some sample topics might include:

  • “What Is the Difference Between a Sofa and a Sectional?”
  • “5 Tips for Taking Care of Leather Furniture”
  • “How to Buy Furniture for a New Home Without Breaking the Bank”

Blogs like these will open up your new customers’ eyes and let them know all about how to buy the best furniture for their homes.

Blogs will also encourage them to educate themselves before they place an order. This will ensure they find what they need, and it might even motivate them to buy furniture they may not have considered before.

Improve Your Furniture Store’s Social Media Operations

How active is your online furniture store on social media? If you’re not active at all, you’re missing a golden opportunity to market your company.

There are so many ways to use social media to your advantage if you’re an online business. You can:

  • Publicize a sale you have going on on your Facebook page while showing off your inventory
  • Give new customers a sneak peek at a couch you just got in this week on Snapchat
  • Show off a video of a piece of furniture being put together in less than 2 minutes on Twitter

These are just a few of the ways that social media can come in handy.

With a little luck, people will be sharing your social media content in no time and spreading the word about your business to others.

Partner With Small Businesses in Your Area

When thinking about how to attract customers to your online furniture store, you should think about linking up with other businesses in your area to do it.

For example, you might want to network with real estate companies in your area and ask if they would be willing to pass along your name to those buying homes and looking for furniture for them.

You might also want to network with moving companies that move furniture for those in your area. They might be willing to pass your name along to those who would rather buy new furniture than move their old stuff.

Regardless of how you choose to do it, there are ways to partner with other businesses in order to promote your own. You can attract new customers in this way by opening yourself up to a market that might not otherwise find your online store.

Use Traditional Marketing Techniques to Advertise

While there are all sorts of ways to promote your business for free these days, there are also options for those businesses that have marketing budgets in place. These options can give them a leg up on their competition.

If you have enough money to devote to marketing, you can run local radio station spots advertising your online furniture store. You can also run ads in the local newspaper and even on local TV stations.

This will, of course, come at a cost to you. But it will allow you to connect with people in a number of different ways.

Once people start to recognize your name and word spreads about your excellent service, you will likely be able to scale back on the advertising push.

But for the time being, this might be the best way to get your name out there in the world and attract new customers to your online store.

Continue to Make Improvements to Your Online Store

Once you’ve figured out how to attract customers to your online furniture store, you will need to keep them coming back.

One way to do that is by providing people with high-quality furniture and great customer service. That will ensure that they’ll consider you again in the future.

But you also need to continue to make improvements to your online store so that people are able to get access to your furniture easily.

That might mean moving from stock photography to original photography that shows off the best parts about your furniture.

It also might mean paying someone to maintain your blog so that it gets updated more frequently and provides people with new useful information.

It might even mean incorporating interactive technology that allows people to see how certain furniture will look in their home.

Whatever you decide to do, you should keep your online furniture store on the cutting edge to differentiate yourself from your competition. Otherwise, your site might start to look old and turn people off from buying furniture from you.

By keeping your website fresh, you’ll keep your customers on their toes and continue to attract new customers over the years.

Start Attracting New Customers to Your Online Furniture Store Now

Whether you’re starting up an online furniture store or trying to get another type of e-commerce business off the ground, it’s important to consider how to attract customers at all times.

There are digital marketing techniques you can use to do it. There are also web design tricks you can use to draw customers in and keep them on your website.

Check out our blog to read more about how to make your online business more successful overall.

HubSpot