It makes perfect sense if your ecommerce store has a goal of selling furniture aimed at millennial shoppers online. There are approximately 80 million millennials in the U.S., and they have a collective annual buying power of around $600 billion. These consumers have grown up alongside the very technology that allows them to quickly and conveniently shop online. Now, many of these shoppers are settling into their careers and upgrading their living spaces. It follows they will need furnishings to match their chosen lifestyles. And that’s where you come in.
It pays to consider exactly what millennials want in terms of furniture and the accompanying ecommerce experience. You can have the flashiest, most appealing product lineup in the world, but poor website design will cause your store to lose out on valuable conversions. Likewise, you can have a highly functional website, but shoppers will abandon their journey if your product offerings fail to tick their boxes. It’s all about streamlining both the front-end experience and optimizing your product catalogue to suit these shoppers’ desires.
The Convenience Factor
Convenience is key. Why? Because many millennials live with family members or roommates. The number of adults in “doubled-up households” has increased to almost a third of all households, according to Business Insider, citing a Zillow report. This refers to people moving in with a friend, family or random roommate “because incomes are stagnant and rents are rising.”
In order to sell your furniture online, you need to realize your target audience may be dealing with certain spatial limitations. Millennial A living in a large city may have two or three roommates and a cramped communal space. Millennial B in a rural town may only be able to furnish their bedroom at the moment. It’s unlikely shoppers like these are looking for heirloom-quality pieces. Rather, they’re seeking affordable and convenient furniture adaptable to their current living situations.
Furthermore, home ownership is a distant speck on the horizon for many consumers in this generation. Between 2007 and 2012, millennials made up over 43 percent of U.S. movers. This is significant, because they only made up 24 percent of the total population during the same time period. With the rate of migration up, it’s only sensible for furniture sellers to consider how portable their pieces are. Anyone in this situation would groan at the thought of moving a heavy bookshelf every time a one-year lease expires. But a lightweight, easy-to-assemble one? Now that sounds much more doable.
This is precisely why modern furniture companies are seeking to reduce traditional “pain points” like shipping and moving large furniture items. One business called Burrow ships midcentury-modern couches in three to four boxes to buyers. This enables a single buyer to bring in the boxes, assemble the couch without complicated tools and disassemble it when the time comes to move. As you can imagine, young professionals in urban settings have responded well, as this option eliminates dragging dangerously heavy furniture up multiple flights of stairs alone.
Think about how your furniture store can make the process of buying, order fulfillment and owning products more convenient for your target audience.
The Website User Experience
You’ve poured time and a chunk of your ad budget into driving millennials to your website. What they encounter there will make or break your bottom line. Focus on these key points:
- Quick load times: Impatient customers tend to exit after just a few seconds of waiting for the page to load.
- Clear navigation: Stick to a central navigation bar with links to all your main landing pages, plus a search bar.
- Findable contact information: Link to your phone number, email form, social media pages and live chat options so customers can clear up inquiries.
- Unique selling proposition: Set your company apart from the pack with a one- to two-line unique selling proposition integrated into your branding.
With a responsive website and a solid understanding of what products will alleviate millennials’ furniture challenges, you’ll be able to reach your target audience and boost sales.
