This is a short repost from our guest article in Retail Technology Insider. Read the full article here.

These are exciting times for home furnishing and furniture retailers, as digital sales continue to climb. In 2021, furniture and home furnishings accounted for 11.78 percent of total retail eCommerce sales in the United States, outpacing other key segments such as electronics and clothing. And this trend shows no signs of slowing.

From direct-to-consumer mattresses to easy-to-assemble home office furniture, consumers have made it clear that they are now comfortable buying big-ticket and highly customizable products online. While many furniture retailers have come a long way in improving the online shopping experience, they still have work to do to increase conversions, including optimizing product detail pages (PDPs) with real-time information. The average add-to-cart rate for furniture and homewares was just 3.79 percent in July 2022 compared to 10.6 percent for food and beverages and 7.31 percent for beauty and personal care, respectively.

Unlike other industries, where the majority of searches are informational, two-thirds (62.3 percent) of searches for the furniture sector are transactional. Yet, many furniture brands put more effort into the design of their home page and checkout experience while neglecting the presentation of their product detail pages. As a result, they are missing opportunities to guide site visitors through to purchase at the entry point of the purchase funnel.

Check out the full guest article!

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