Consumers are better informed than ever before. They have more options and purchasing power and are more careful about decisions.
The informed consumer sets new demands on his entire environment and expects a personalized approach to his needs before he can be convinced to make a decision or consume.
The new behavior affects all products and brands, the lifestyle industry, which including the furniture industry.
Furniture and furnishings need to fit a living (room) concept, beyond singular product pieces. The complete look and feel of a room is key to customer success. In 2020, the increased use of technology in our our everyday life, the desire for ecologically pure products, a sustainable lifestyle and the increasing health awareness in living must be combined into a seamless solution.
Essential fields of action
On the supplier side, the new consumer behaviour opens up many opportunities to fascinate the consumer and to define one’s own value. The pre-condition: quick action, understand trends and a digital competency update!
On the move into a new digital competency update, the companies that define their core competence precisely will succeed, undergo a radical professionalization, not forgetting their own value scale.
In 2020, brands will not leave the fast lane, which:
- Rethinking current practices and question
- Innovation processes customer-oriented Design
- Product management from the beginning to the Consistently align the end
- Production processes and purchasing Optimize
- Sales & Marketing Individualized & digital Structure
Taking advantage of digital opportunities
The big question that will shape the furniture industry in 2020 and in the years to come is: What KPI measures can we use to align our innovation process in a customer-oriented manner?
The answer: Digital opportunities must be used proactively!
Because the real world and digital networking have long been merged. Those who are not acting on the bleeding edge now, give the customer the opportunity to receive information at lightning speed and to exchange information with friends connected to them and to speed up purchases through a transparent website, are missing out on great opportunities. Digital technology also changes shopping perspectives, information gathering, product selection, price comparison and shopping experience.
Trend winners integrate digital processes into their entire business model and push for the following measures:
- Plan e-commerce solutions and multi-channel strategies
- Innovative customer information systems Reminder (Click & Collect)
- Build platforms for communities (create added value)
- Customer Service 2.0 via social media
- Electronic Supply Chain Management Set up to optimize purchasing
Inspiration happens online – From my point of view
Using the online channel to inspire the customer is both an opportunity and a great challenge. In order to be able to talk to the customer at an early stage in the decision-making process, it is important to pick up the customer in an inspirational phase with specific content. In addition, targeted advertising measures (on Pinterest, Instagram and other sources of inspiration) can be used to form a clearer picture of the target customers.
This measure can help to make better purchasing decisions and to shape product production according to trends and learnings.
What do you have to pay attention to from a trader’s point of view? Static showrooms must also be available online. High-quality image rye, video content, etc. are essential. But how do you decide what happens to the content? So that the invested time is used wisely? And how do you use digital marketing as a means of communication with both new and existing customers, right?
It starts with a definition of the digital communication media, as well as a clear, actionable internal division of the organizational skills required of their company to implement the content strategy.
Our view is supported by Jan Becker, who describes in the following video which measures are relevant for the furniture trade of the future:
We support furniture retailers and furniture retailers to cope with these tasks.
The IMM Cologne will take place this year from 16.01.2020-17.01.2010. We are also represented! Here you can find more information about the IMM Cologne 2020.
