Six Strategies to Help Furniture Retailers Attract Millennial Shoppers

Despite industry reports on rising numbers of Millennial shoppers buying furniture, the data we manage for a number of mainstream furniture retailers shows Millennials still make up a very small portion of today's furniture buyers. You can see the infographic we created using this data in a previous post. However that doesn't mean furniture retail chains shouldn't start to build strategies to attract Millennial shoppers. In fact, now is the time to start building relationships with this huge population segment that is starting to come into their prime earning years.

Strategy 1: Target the right Millennial sub groups. As a whole, Millennials tend to live with their parents longer or move back in with them. Many are saddled with huge college loan debt and are underemployed. Doesn't sound like good targets for buying furniture, right? However, there are good segments of Millennial shoppers that are good targets. We believe the top two segments for furniture retailers to target now are segments we call Modern Moms and Do It My Ways. Both segments are on the older end of the generation. Each segment tends to have higher income levels and are beginning to – or already have – established households, including getting married and having children. Segmenting your data and targeting these groups should lead to the best results. But, don't think that means you can just target married Millennials, because this generation tends to follow a different path. Where the typical Baby Boomer got married, lived together then had children, Millennials are just as likely to live together first, have children and then get married.

Strategy 2: Build relationships now for future gains. With Millennials, you need to build brand trust and affinity over time and engage with them on an ongoing basis. They have grown up with constant marketing and digital immediacy – they know when they are being sold to by the brand, rather than being engaged and connected with the brand. So, the brands that work to engage and build trust now will be the ones that the Millennials will go to when they are ready to shop.

Strategy 3:.Use one-to-one marketing vehicles. Since the messaging you're going to need to develop to connect with Millennial shoppers is different than the messaging to your general audience on a week to week basis and even your messaging to different segments of Millennials should be different, your best media for connecting with Millennials is through one-to-one direct marketing. Your best bets for reaching them with targeted messaging are to use digital and social ads that can target the right message to the right person at the right time.

Strategy 4: Highlight your custom orders. Thanks to growing up with all the options the online world provides right at their fingertips, Millennials not only want, but they expect customization and personalization. Most furniture retailers offer a customized product that is rarely talked about: custom orders. Creating messaging that speaks to the fact you can “have your couch your way” would offer Millennial shoppers the opportunity to customize their furniture. Talking about the hundreds of options, when you combine frame, color and fabric choices, will resonate well with this generation. Custom orders may be a small part of furniture retailers overall business, but it may be something that could drive more Millennials to shop at your store – even if they decide on something that is already in inventory..

Strategy 5: Use social and digital content to engage. Although retailers sending the right targeted messages to Millennials will help to connect with them, it simply may not be enough to get Millennials engaged. Continuous conversation comes with appealing content. And continuous conversation will show that brand relationships are being built with Millennials. In order to digitally and socially reach Millennials and build relationships, brands need to provide them with a variety of experiences and opportunities within their content to be a fan as they age into more active furniture buyers.

Strategy 6: Create a seamless online and off-line user experience. Don’t expect Millennials to shop for furniture the same way their parents did. Millennials are pushing for disruption to the old model, forcing retailers to re-evaluate their strategy and create a customized, innovative experience for them. This means that interactive technologies (websites, mobile apps, etc.) need to provide the most usable, self-guided, efficient user experiences. And it will be the furniture retailers that create a modern shopping experience marrying both online and in-store channels that will succeed. According to a retail industry report on being more customer-centric, “customer-facing tools such as smartphones, tablets and in-store kiosks have become mission critical to the shopping experience, yet most retailers still have not integrated these tools into a cohesive system that creates circular commerce.”

These are just a few strategies furniture retailers can use to attreact Millennial shoppers now. They are part of a larger strategy document we have developed for our furniture clients. If you'd like to see more, just contact us at info@yaffe.com. And if you'd like to share some of your strategies, just add them to the comment section. We look forward to hearing from you.

Mike McClure, Boomer in body, Millennial in mind.