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Top 10 Tips to Take Advantage of Home Furnishings Showrooming

Posted by Brandon Weaver | Tue, Aug 26, 2014 @ 11:30 AM

Home Furnishings ShowroomingA recent Gallup poll showed that 40% of Americans have showroomed at least once in some form or another, and brick-and-mortar stores may be losing 1 out of 10 customers due to showrooming. Helping contribute to this profit-killing practice is the proliferation of cell phone usage while shopping. Consider the following statistics from the Federal Reserve as they relate to cell phone usage and showrooming:

  • 87% of the U.S. adult population have cell phones, and 61% of those are smartphones
  • 44% of smartphone users have comparison shopped while at a retail store
  • 68% of consumers changed where they purchased based on the information they found

Electronics and clothes merchants lose the most sales to showrooming, but home furnishings owners and managers should be on high alert considering the nature of your business. With the types of items you display, people will generally perform more research, gather more reviews, and make a more educated purchase decision than they would if they were, say, buying a video game. Showrooming in your industry can take many forms: lounging on the furniture, lying on the bed, opening and closing refrigerators, etc.

To combat showrooming, here are the top 10 tips for your home furnishings store:

1.      Provide Search Tools - Smartphone adoption is very high, and it doesn’t matter if your customers are Millennials, Generation X, or Baby Boomers as this chart shows. Since you may even be reading this on your phone this probably comes as no surprise. A Columbia Business School study shows that men's showrooms are slightly more than women and smartphones are used primarily to price check and read reviews. Why not provide a computer kiosk and have staff monitor their search so they can encourage a purchase decision on the spot?

2.      Try a “We’ll Pay the Sales Tax” Promotion - The sales tax can be quite substantial for customers when shopping for big-ticket items. This is especially true if you operate in one of the higher tax rate states such as Tennessee, Arkansas, or Louisiana. Promoting a weekend or holiday “we pay your sales tax” deal may just increase store traffic and total sales more than you think.

3.      “Check Out Anywhere” - Many Apple stores arm their sales force with iPads to take appointments and complete the sale with a payment device attached to the tablet. That way customers don’t have to wait in line at the register and salespeople can assist customers faster and more efficiently.

4.      Free In-Store Pickup - For whatever reason, if an item is not available in-store, have it shipped for pick up. Customers will appreciate it because it keeps them returning to your store and they don’t have to pay for shipping. Best Buy has done wonders with this shopping convenience tool and it can help with word-of-mouth too.

5.      “In-Home Layaway” - Layaway can be a great option to offer customers who can’t make full payment at the time of purchase. But with layaway, the customer’s order is reserved “in the back” taking up valuable inventory space. In-home layaway (a.k.a. Multiple Check) offers you guaranteed payments and lets your customers take their order home the same day.

6.      In-Store IS Online - Maybe you don’t have enough floor space to feature some products or every version of every product. Offering products online with an interactive/zoom/rotate feature can allow you to showcase them and following tip #4 you might offer free in-store pickup if customers purchase online. Some retailers utilize this tip very well already (see: Costco coupon books offering limited merchandise online only.)

7.      Have an App - Smartphones are not as powerful without apps. Take advantage of this by developing your own. Offering app-only deals to shoppers to use in-store and providing another outlet for them to review your store in the app’s interface may just increase your sales more than you think.

8.      Make Reviews More Visible - Who better to hype your products and customer service than your customers? Experiment by displaying customer reviews on the glass store-front, and A-frame signs, and encourage Yelp reviews. Did you get negative reviews? Address them head-on. Don’t hide from them or delete them.

9. Clean Staff & Showroom Appearance - We’ve all experienced a messy store that made us leave without purchasing. In fact, from the second customers enter your parking lot they are evaluating you. Is there trash thrown about and stray shopping carts threatening to roll into their shiny car? Are your beds made, appliances dusted, carpets vacuumed? Is your staff well-groomed and dressed to impress? Make sure you’re setting the best example so consumers don’t walk out on you.

10.  Ease of Shopping for Returning Customers - This is akin to auto-populating personal information on website order forms. Offer customers the option to put their purchase “on account” where they can pay their balance at the end of the month.

 

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Topics: Home Furnishings

Written by Brandon Weaver