The Secrets of Selling Furniture With Video

Furniture is one of those things that just makes you feel at home. If you own a furniture store or home decor brand, you don’t merely sell things.  You sell the mood, comfort, and that feeling of coziness.

According to a survey completed by the Franklin Furniture Institute, 60.7% of respondents agreed that they express themselves through the furniture that they buy. As long as you invest in your product’s design, you’ll have customers. However, there are already nearly 90,000 establishments in the United States alone that sell furniture of all kinds.

That’s a strong competition. How do you get yourself a piece of the pie? Video. Furniture is pricey, which means that merchants need to invest in building customer trust. And with more and more customers shopping online every year, buyers want to be sure that the piece of furniture they’re eyeing will look exactly how they imagined in their home.

Savvy salespeople combine excellent product knowledge, good customer service and video to showcase their products. Here are our 3 secrets for using video to master the art of selling furniture.

Secret One: Know your product

Knowledge is power. For retailers, product knowledge can be the key to higher sales. Without really knowing your merchandise, it can be difficult to show your customer how a particular product will address their needs.
Having a thorough understanding of your inventory can allow salespeople to recognize and adapt a sales presentation for each customer.

The most important element of product knowledge is selling the benefits of your product rather than the features. The buyer wants to know why a particular feature is important to them. Something that might be cool to you does not necessarily mean it will be cool to the customer. The truth is, customers will probably only use 20% of the available features anyway.

Try implementing a product video into your website to showcase some of your best pieces.

Aside from being extremely knowledgeable, one of the greatest selling tools is seeing someone enthusiastic about their product. By generating excitement, salespeople are able to remove any uncertainty that a customer might have. The easiest way to become enthusiastic about your product? Truly believe in it. Remember that the first sale you make is yourself. The second, is your product. And if your customers believe in you, they’ll believe in the product you’re selling! You don’t even have to physically be in the store to generate this type of contagious energy.

Here’s an example: After the customer leaves your store, send them a personalized video email featuring the piece of furniture they showed interest in. State the details that are important to them, the features that would make their life easier and don’t forget to mention how great it would look in their family room!

Secret Two: Know your customer

Selling furniture is a tough feat. By simply creating a general conversation with your client, you’ll begin collecting a lot of information. This knowledge will allow you to determine their wants and needs without having to directly ask them. Show the customer you truly care by putting in a little extra effort to create that personalized experience.

Make sure you see the big picture. Find out everything you can about the room the furniture will be in, the style, and its intended use. Try to envision the “total look.” You’re not just selling a chair, you’re selling a solution to a specific need or circumstance.

Oftentimes, we forget that our prospects are real, live human beings. They have needs, desires, questions, goals, concerns, priorities, perspectives etc. However, if you take the time to really get to know them, you’ll find that they are not just coming to your store or online shop for your products, but for their lives. Our products, or in this case furniture, are things that will improve their lives, make them more interesting, more convenient or more fulfilled.

Secret Three: Personalized communication

When an inquiry comes in online, shoot the customer a video via email introducing yourself as their personal furniture shopping assistant. Ask them questions about their wants and needs, and give them the possibility to reply back to your email with a video of their own.

Once you’ve collected enough information to recommend different pieces of furniture that will fit their needs, send them your suggestions. Instead of sending them plain images or links to each piece of furniture, record a personalized video of your recommendations. Be sure to be as descriptive as possible. Your customers want to know that this particular piece will fit perfectly in their home.

Watch the video below to see how powerful video really is.

The future of selling furniture

As technology advances, furniture sales are slowly but surely beginning to move out of the physical store and into virtual showrooms. This new way of selling furniture allows merchandisers to offer a full range of furniture in a dramatically smaller space. Companies like Amazon and Wayfair have begun using augmented reality to help sell furniture. This AR-enabled shopping experience allows customers to visualize furniture in their own home by simply holding up their smartphone.

Although VR and online shopping are often viewed as enemies of brick-and-mortar stores, modern companies have big plans to embrace both technologies. One of these even includes one of America’s biggest retailers, Macy’s. Given the possibility of avoiding long checkout lines, more and more customers are opting for a convenient online shopping experience. Retailers are becoming more interested in AR not only because it is new and trendy, but because it helps address the real issue that many shoppers face when attempting to purchase furniture online.

As a result, it is often difficult for non-designers to get an idea of what a piece of furniture will look like in a particular room. Will the new armchair match the existing couch and drapes? Is it the right size? AR helps answer these questions as it projects their online inventory of furniture in 3D and at full-scale. This allows shoppers to get a visual of what the room will look like when the new sofa comes in.

Furniture has had a difficult time transitioning online.

Mostly because consumers still want to see the products in real life, touch the fabric and try out cushion comfort. However, things are beginning to change. More commerce is shifting online, and smart companies are beginning to capitalize on this shift.

Before you know it, you’ll be designing your entire living room with the help of a smartphone and AR app! Until then, try using personalized videos to start building better relationships with your clients. Start a free trial of Covideo today.