Modern homes function as multipurpose spaces. This gives home and decor retailers a golden opportunity to maximize online revenue. Traditionally, homes were simply a place to eat and sleep. Today, a home can also be an office, classroom, fitness space, and entertainment hub. With shoppers continuing to dress every part of their home, it’s more important than ever to optimize the home & decor shopping experience. In fact, the industry’s revenue is expected to increase by 25% over the next five years.
The Rise of Home Furnishings Ecommerce
Home is where the heart is, and ecommerce is where the opportunity is. Home furnishings consumers have come to expect a brick and mortar-level customer experience online. So, retailers are ramping up their online efforts. A 2021 survey shows that 69% of US furniture retailers intend to increase their focus on ecommerce.
5 Ways to Optimize the Home & Decor Shopping Experience
1. Build Shoppers’ Trust
Consumers are more likely to invest in products or services based on reviews and social proof. And the reasoning is simple. Potential customers tend to trust existing customers.
The value of reviews in general is straightforward. In the interior design industry, they can be even more important. Say a shopper can’t sit on a couch they’re eyeing to determine its comfort level. So, they may look to the opinions of previous buyers to help them decide. This is especially common for big-ticket items.
Social proof can also be valuable. It can come in many forms, including how many shoppers are currently viewing an item, and how many customers have purchased that item. This leverages shopper satisfaction and emphasizes product popularity to on-the-fence users. This often results in additional customer relationships and higher conversion rates.
2. Provide Personalized Recommendations
Interior design is always personal. This creates a need for the online shopper journey to be personalized with recommendations. But in the home and decor industry, recommendations should go beyond best sellers. They should consider the room, interior style, product category, and price range shopped during each session. By accounting for these details, retailers can align recommendations with real time shopper interests.
By highlighting accent decor and complementary items, shoppers are encouraged to enhance their space and add to their orders. And accurate product recommendations are an incredible tool to increase AOV. Better yet, the value goes beyond benefitting the bottom line. Spot-on recommendations also elevate the customer journey by providing shoppers with a personalized home shopping experience – kind of like having an interior decorator in their pocket.
3. Highlight Existing Offers
Reiterating existing offers is a great way to meet performance goals without relying on new incentives. Meeting abandoning shoppers with existing markdowns encourages them to stay and make a purchase that better aligns with their current interests. By leveraging price fluctuations, such as seasonal markdowns, online retailers can move shoppers down the conversion path without hurting the bottom line.
4. Remember Where Shoppers Left Off
Saving shoppers’ carts is always a valuable strategy to add a layer of convenience to the customer journey. This is particularly true in the home and decor industry where measurements, planning, and comparison shopping can result in long consideration times.
In addition to the long consideration periods that often accompany home and decor purchases, there are many other reason shoppers may want to pick up where they left off later. Some shoppers browsing on their mobile phones may wish to purchase later on a desktop. Others may be in an area with poor service and be experiencing temporary issues with site speed. Therefore, giving shoppers the option to complete their purchase whenever they want can keep users shopping with you, not your competitors.
5. Stay Top-of-Mind
Highly relevant remarketing emails can boost the success of ecommerce sites. Namely, emails can recover lost sales through one-to-one personalization and dynamic content, like rebuilt carts. Going beyond a customer’s first purchase, emails can also generate more sales from past customers.
Elevating the Home & Decor Shopping Experience
Online businesses should always cover the basic pillars of a great shopping experience. For example, every site should provide fast load times, enticing landing pages, and quick links to customer service. However, that’s only the beginning. The above strategies are incredibly effective ways to create a truly memorable and consistent experience for home and decor shoppers.
Bringing it Home: Optimization by Design
UpSellit proves itself as a key partner in maximizing the value of every home & decor site visit. Our Home & Decor Case Study details how UpSellit boosts AOV by +41% with one-to-one recommendations and secures new-to-file leads to recover sales. Grab this FREE resource to learn more.
