Today I want to raise a global topic that requires more than one publication. After all, it is almost impossible to describe everything about creation and furniture in one article. Since there are a lot of small points that need to be taken into account, and they will be very important in the future. Therefore, we will divide all the material into several blocks.
Usually, each site is still being finalized after launch, unless, of course, it develops, and does not stand still. Today we will talk about how to create and promote a successful online furniture store.
All this will increase your conversion and allow you to develop your online furniture store faster. I would like to continue a few more points, but I will highlight them in the next article. Because many questions have not yet been disclosed in this article, but they also require attention.
In the sequel, I will try to paint everything in more detail, write to what questions you would like to receive an answer. We comment, put likes. And as hackneyed serials: "To be continued!"
Analysis of sales of custom-made furniture. I will also tell you the specifics of setting up, and how to make the campaign profitable.
But first, fly in the ointment. I set up all kinds of furniture and related subjects. And I immediately say - when it is better not to advertise in context. Success is unlikely if:
But custom-made furniture in Yandex.Direct is doing well. The article is just about that.
The main thing in receiving furniture orders is a good website. In advertising, the winner will be the one with whom it is carefully thought out. If your site looks something like this, don't go to Direct.
ugly furniture is for cats or what?))
Multi-page website or landing page? From my experience, I concluded that furniture landing pages work better. But not because such a format. Typically, multi-page furniture sites have been around for many years. They are inconvenient, important commercial information (for example, about delivery, payment, portfolio) is spread across different pages. On mobile phones, they generally look creepy, I want to close it right away. Such sites are usually owned by experienced entrepreneurs with experience. Yes, they did well at one time when any site was selling. But not now.
the correct rubricator for cabinets - click on the required type for further selection
Important: all products must have detailed descriptions. Dimensions, thickness, what materials are used. Here are the advantages that can be seen on the forehead - moisture-resistant chipboard, 8 mm tempered glass, water-repellent coating, fittings from Germany.
a good option is a rubricator with a picture, description and price
Build trust. Show a photo of the production, a team, record a time-lapse video with the manufacture of furniture. The latter, by the way, was implemented by a client on the website - conversion + 15%. People see that you are not outbid, that you are working, and trust increases.
What else is possible on the site? If there is no ready-made portfolio - make sketches with descriptions, show how the finished product will look like. It also works: we didn't find your version of the kitchen - send us the picture you like, we'll do it. By the way, this is how I ordered the kitchen for myself - I downloaded a picture from a foreign site, came to the furniture makers, they say, make me the same.
Be careful about collecting keys. There is a lot of information traffic in furniture. They are looking for furniture in the interior, they want to see what it looks like, requests for repair, do-it-yourself installation, maintenance. Plus there will be many keys with the names of brands that you do not sell, names of competing stores. Thoroughly minus all this at the stage of collection.
Important - if you do only to order, minus "ready-made", "assembled"
The main thing is not to include imagination. No creativity whatsoever! Write exactly what you sell + digital benefits. No need to write “the best kitchens in the district”, but “Kitchens from 50 thousand. Own production, 3-year warranty + free installation”. In the search, insert the city in the second heading.
Good example - benefits, prices, specifics
Here the picture decides. Therefore, on it you show what you are selling. Do not take pictures from the Internet, but take from your portfolio. Most importantly, take a lot of pictures with one text for the test. And in another campaign - one image with different texts in the ads. Please note that in YAN very often only the ad title is shown, and the text is not. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the title. For example, “Custom-made hallways in St. Petersburg” works well, but “Any furniture of high quality” does not work well.
A nuance - on the search engine and in the YAN, go to the campaign parameters and disable impressions on Yandex Images. Yes, by default, your ads will be shown where people come just to see.
First, we test bids on search and in networks to get the desired coverage. You should not immediately twist the price before the special placement, it can be very expensive to search. But YAN works very well in custom-made furniture. If the budget is limited, it helps a lot. On my clients, YAN brings up to half of the applications with a terribly expensive search, which I limit.
Be sure to set goals in Metrica and track applications for them. The difficulty is in what - if tracking is simple and free of charge for sending the application form, then call tracking is needed with calls, and it costs money. There will be calls, but it is impossible to track ads on them and disable those that are not working without call tracking. Therefore, if the majority of leads go to the phone, you will have to fork out for tracking them. As a result, then this will bring savings, when only those keys and ads for which there are applications will remain on the campaigns.
If you are selling custom-made furniture and need a quality customization:
19.03.2018
Needed. I hope you have no doubts that furniture companies need a website? Social media is at least one of the ways to increase its traffic. It is also an effective tool for receiving applications, communicating with the audience and increasing loyalty to your brand. Furniture makers who want to really make a profit should take into account all the promotion methods, but choose the main ones depending on their own goals and resources.
Below are detailed instructions that will allow you not to waste your budget on an empty imitation of activities, but to get real profits from social networks.
In the course of our research on which social networks to promote the furniture business, we drew some conclusions.
Instagram is the most promising social network for furniture makers. There is maximum involvement. The same content on Instagram and other social networks with an equal number of subscribers receives tens of times more responses. Moreover, these are not only likes, but also real applications. When promoting, maximum attention should be paid to Instagram. All other social networks are developing, rather, in addition to it. Our findings are identical to the Insense study.
VKontakte is the largest social network in Russia, and this must be taken into account. There are people on VKontakte who are not on Instagram, so investments here can pay off. Official data on the social network.
You need to have Facebook, if only because it is from it that the profile on Instagram is managed. The Russian-speaking audience on Facebook is much smaller than on VKontakte. According to the "Academy of Lead Generation" as of June 2017, its number is 23 million. But this is a very high-quality audience: there are many adults, educated and wealthy people here, this must be taken into account if you are selling expensive furniture. But you shouldn't expect a big response from Facebook. This social network has successfully resisted commercial activity. It artificially lowers the rating of content impressions from brand pages. You can read more about this algorithm in this article.
Twitter and Odnoklassniki. "Twitter" in Russia has not taken root, and the popularity of the network is falling altogether.
Twitter audience has stopped growing. According to the results of the second quarter of this year, the monthly number of active users of the microblogging service amounted to about 328 million. The same figure was noted in the first quarter of 2017. However, when compared with the second quarter of 2016, the growth was at the level of 5% (according to 3D news).
Odnoklassniki, on the other hand, is the second largest social network in Russia. But it doesn’t have a high level of engagement based on our research on promoting the furniture business on social media. If you still decide to test this social network, "A complete guide to Odnoklassniki" you can read the Texterra blog.
YouTube is a promising channel, but promotion there is complicated by the high cost of producing video content. It's one thing to shoot a short video for Instagram on a smartphone, knowing that users will only watch it from the small screens of mobile phones.
Another channel is messengers. It is not known whether the furniture theme is popular there or not, how users will react, whether the investment in promotion will pay off. If you want to give it a try, please tell us about the results later.
So far, messengers are used by sellers to communicate with customers, clarify their requests, send them photos with a selection of goods. This also needs to be taught. It is not enough to send a photo and ask: "How do you?" It is important to give correct explanations using the techniques "Zest of the product", "5 steps for setting a price range", "PrePoVoz" and a number of others. We teach these subtleties to sellers on a special distance course.
This article describes only work on Instagram, VKontakte and Facebook.
In the case of a client who chooses furniture, it is necessary to have time to “grab” it at the right time. This complicates things. A person bought a house, then chooses materials for repair, only then moves on to furniture. It also happens that all the main things have been done, but there was not enough for something. We must keep this in mind when creating content for social media. For example, post advice on repairs, crew selection, and more.
Another feature is that furniture is not bought spontaneously - it is an expensive and important purchase. But inexpensive accessories, interior decoration items and so on can be bought. This is also something to keep in mind when creating content.
First of all, register a business account on Instagram. Now users will be able to contact you, and you will see extended statistics and get access to the Facebook advertising account.
Now you will see extended statistics for each post: reach, engagement, number of views.
At the last stage of creating a business account, you will be prompted to provide contact information.
It is very important to design the cover correctly. Firstly, this is the only place on Instagram where you can specify an active link to your site. Secondly, users will distinguish you from other stores by your avatar and name. Thirdly, in the description you can indicate your USP and talk about the promotions.
To make your avatar look good, choose a photo with your logo strictly at 110 x 110 pixels. Otherwise, it will blur and look ugly. Note that the avatar is round and the corners will be cut off.
When you come up with a description, tell us about your benefits, promotions, discounts and everything that sets you apart from the competition. The description can be changed for each promotion or significant event in the store. The maximum length is 150 characters.
There is nothing worse than filling your profile with endless messages about promotions and discounts. Furniture is not a product that is bought spontaneously. We have already given similar examples in our previous article. Discounts will work when the user has already decided to buy furniture for himself, but if he doubts, then the promotions will not convince him.
Small shops usually do not have the money for full and high-quality content, professional photographers and copywriters. You can take beautiful photos yourself.
In order for non-professional photos to look good, they need to be processed. You can do it yourself in Literoom and Photoshop. There is a Photoshop official website.
You can hire a designer to process the photos. If you entrust this to a freelancer, it will not be very expensive.
Let the copywriter write the texts. So that he knows what to write about, give him the documentation for your furniture. Texts like "wonderful furniture set, white, evoking thoughts of spring and romance" do not work well. It does not contain any useful information, except for what the reader already sees in the photo.
You can find a copywriter and a photographer on freelance exchanges like FL.ru, https://work-zilla.com/, https://freelance.ru/
If finances permit, hire a photographer, and he will already take care of the equipment of the site and professional lighting.
Other options for content are short videos (no longer than 1.5 minutes - Instagram restriction). Show how your furniture is assembled. Test it, show how it unfolds and folds, what drawers and compartments it has. Just photos in the interior are usually enough.
Communicating with customers on social networks should not be a hired SMM manager, but your employee who owns sales scripts, has information about the product and is able to work with doubts and objections. This is the ideal. MCC can help you write scripts and train your employees to use them in order to properly respond to objections. For example, on this course.
If a user is interested in a product, do not miss it while it is warm. Write to him in "Direct" (a personal messaging service on Instagram), transfer to your phone or website, on VKontakte, in short, somewhere from where he can perform the targeted action.
All negativity should be worked out instantly so as not to spoil your reputation. Don't let users complain too much in public. Try to lure them off the page into private messages to let them rage there. Public scandals spoil the attitude of clients towards you, so they need to be nipped in the bud. Ideal script: a client complains, you write to him in "Direct" and ask about the problem, on the page itself you say that you wrote to the outraged user in private messages. When the issue is resolved, publicly report that the issue has been successfully resolved.
There are four ways to promote on Instagram: hashtags, targeted ads, blogger ads, and mass following.
Massfollowing Is an automatic promotion. Special services automatically add everyone you specify as friends in the hope that they will add you in response. This is a bad method, not worth wasting time on.
Firstly, the social network itself actively fights against such methods (well, of course, you are taking away advertising bread from it) and you can be banned. Second, it annoys users terribly. Two stores subscribe to one average user every day. Doing this kind of thing is a surefire way to ruin your reputation.
Advertising with bloggers... Finding a truly popular regional blogger is not easy. In addition, it is not easy to negotiate with them, it is impossible to check whether they have a real audience or only bots, it is impossible to predict the effectiveness of advertising. There are well-promoted specialists who have a suitable target audience for selling, for example, children's furniture. For example, the popular doctor Komarovsky (broadcasts on television) or psychologist Larisa Surkova (writes books on parenting). The number of their subscribers is such that it will easily block the flow of buyers to your point in the MC.
Hashtags- these are the headings on Instagram. They are of two types: personal and public. Personal hashtags are needed to structure information on your blog. For example, you post photos of sofas, kitchens and hallways, there have already been several hundred posts. To make it easy for a user to see only the sofas from your store, tag posts with hashtags like # sofas_your_shop_name. There is no need to come up with a huge number of personal hashtags. One or two is enough for each post.
Public hashtags are those by which users search for information on Instagram.
It makes no sense to move on the most popular hashtags #membrane and #furnitureorder. There are so many posts out there that you can't stand the competition.
The best hashtags for promotion are regional: #mebelnazakazirkutsk, # interior design Krasnodar, #hiteksamara, etc. Before using a hashtag, see how popular it is. If no one uses it, except you, then there is no point in advancing on it.
Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags to a post. The more there are, the more coverage, but also the worse your post looks. A whole paragraph of hashtags interferes with the normal perception of the text. Leave 10-15, this is the optimal amount.
The division or, as it is called, segmentation of the target audience on Instagram takes place according to the following criteria:
You can customize the place where users will see your ad: in the feed, like a regular post, in a video, in the new story format (photos or short videos that are shown on the page for a day and then disappear). You can directly advertise your product and invite users to your site or encourage them to follow you on social media.
A successful ad consists of three parts: a beautiful picture or video, interesting text and, most importantly, a call to targeted action.
A detailed overview of all the possibilities of targeted advertising on Instagram will take up too much space in this article, so I recommend that you read the guide on launching advertising on Instagram.
Instagram is good for everyone, except that it is a mobile application. Usually, managers find it inconvenient to work from a smartphone. To make life easier for them, download the Windows 10 app from the Windows Store, it's free. You will be able to work with comments, private messages and statistics. But it does not allow you to download photos directly from your computer, so download additionally the free Gramb application, designed just for this purpose.
These social networks provide roughly the same opportunities for content creation. They have serious differences from Instagram. First, they focus more on text rather than pictures. Secondly, it is possible to upload a long video here. Thirdly, these social networks make it possible to put active links to third-party sites.
VKontakte and Facebook, unlike Instagram, have a huge number of settings for group design.
I will not enumerate all the possibilities for the design of the VKontakte group - they are really very wide. I will only tell you what you must use. First is the cover. It should have your logo and some kind of picture characterizing your activity. If you have only one store, and not a network, then enter your address and phone number.
A wiki menu is an analogue of a website page. You can design it beautifully and turn the inscriptions into links leading to your site, but here you have to choose: either the user will see a text description of your company when entering the page, or a menu. The menu is better in my opinion. The most important information can be succinctly indicated in the subheading, contacts - in the picture. But with the menu, nothing beats in the degree of attention grabbing.
Albums with photos are placed below. "VKontakte" allows you to immediately turn them into goods with a price and the ability to leave your contacts for communication with the manager.
Missing all these opportunities means losing customers.
For VKontakte, there are a huge number of applications that expand the capabilities of the social network. For example, the application “
The furniture market in Russia is vast, new enterprises survive if they find a free niche in a particular region. It is important to consider that the competition is lower in the low and medium price bracket. The sales volume depends on the size of the settlement. Experts believe that it is profitable to produce furniture in a settlement with 500-800 thousand inhabitants. It helps to reduce costs, keep demand at the desired level and reduce the impact of competition.
Experts' forecasts are encouraging - small and medium-sized furniture business will reach 75% in the coming years. The most rational are small workshops that manufacture economy and middle class furniture of the same type to order.
The advantages of the workshop include:
Manufacturing to order avoids the negative effects of competition. The low cost of finished goods accelerates sales, which makes it possible to quickly return the initial investment.
But when choosing, it is necessary to take into account the disadvantages. If the furniture is handcrafted, it takes creativity and great time. A small assortment can quickly saturate the market. But the workshop is a good option for the initial stage. How to promote the furniture business in the future depends on the circumstances. You can often change the assortment or expand production.
It is not worth buying a room for a workshop. Location (entrance), temperature (18 ° C) and humidity level (up to 70%) are important. This means that a ventilation and heating system is needed. In unfavorable conditions, both raw materials and finished products can be damaged. The area should be sufficient for production, warehouses and premises for the administration.
Equipment for the shop is purchased semi-automatic:
In the manufacture of custom-made furniture, small tools are also needed: cutting devices, perforators, screwdrivers, drills, drills, knives, etc.
Reaches 25%, the average payback period is 2-2.5 years.
A furniture store can be of various sizes:
Premises for a hypermarket are selected in a residential area or outside the city in order to lower it. A hypermarket should have a wide range of goods at various prices (from economy to luxury). The efficiency of the activity is increased by additional services.
The salon is small (from 30 m2), as customers place orders from the catalog. The room should have a place for employees (tables, chairs, computer equipment) and a place for visitors, equipped with upholstered furniture.
In the warehouse, furniture is sold at an affordable price and immediately. allows an additional offer to order some types of goods according to an individual sketch.
The amount of initial investment directly depends on the type of store. The choice can be made only after a thorough analysis of the market in a particular region. It is important to offer customers something that is not available in sufficient quantities.
The advantages of the store include:
But the competition is high, since there are already such shops in any locality. The initial costs are high regardless of the type of outlet (they can reach 2.5-3 million rubles), since a lot of funds are required for the purchase of goods. If the selection of the assortment is unsuccessful, there is a possibility that the purchased product will be difficult to sell. In the best case scenario and a 20-40% markup, the initial investment will pay off in 2 years.
Under your own brand, you need from 30 million rubles. This option is a furniture workshop expanded several times. When arranging production with modern equipment, it is possible to achieve a profitability of 15-25% due to the supply of furniture in the region and country.
The pluses include:
Disadvantages of the factory:
A furniture factory should be opened if there is a large investment and a willingness to wait for a return for a long time.
When looking for an answer to the question, which is better, production or trade, it is important to take into account financial capabilities and personal qualities. If you have skills in plumbing, it is better to start from the workshop. If you are sure that you can manage the production, the stage of the workshop is skipped if you have money. For a person who has the ability to trade, the best option would be a store.
All options have advantages and disadvantages; profitability depends on a number of factors that do not always depend on the entrepreneur. The quality of the finished product and the economic conditions in the region and country are of great importance.
You can make money without having a lot of money for an initial investment in a small room. The only condition is the availability of a raw material supplier offering cutting services. This allows you not to purchase expensive equipment. When buying a semi-finished product, components and an inexpensive assembly tool are required. In such a situation, success depends only on the planning of the model and the quality of the hand assembly. If the products meet the needs of customers, production can be expanded.
Even in a large factory it is impossible to produce all kinds of furniture. It is important to determine who the product is intended for. These may not be households. There are children's and public organizations in the city that need specific products. Each institution needs a different style. In addition, furniture is made not only from wood. In warehouses, banks and medical centers, in the chemical and food industries, metal furniture is required. This is a good option if such products are not produced in a specific region.
When opening a store, you should not start with a large area and a wide range of products. It is advisable to walk around the already operating shops of the city and determine what they offer. There is always a type of product that does not exist. It becomes the basis for the formation of the assortment of a specialized store. The advantage of this approach is the ability to become a monopolist in a small niche.
Furniture can be kitchen, built-in, cabinet, upholstered, garden, specialized, for offices or children's and medical institutions. The equipment is purchased after choosing the type of product. The factory requires bulky machines and tools; in the trade, a minimum amount of furniture is sufficient for staff and buyers.
If a workshop is opened and the material is not planned to be cut independently, then hand tools are bought: drills, screwdrivers, grinders, milling cutters, hair dryers, punchers, etc. The machines are expensive, they can be bought later (if desired), when a customer base and sales level is formed will rise.
For a factory, equipment is selected depending on what is planned to be produced. For example, in the manufacture of cabinet furniture, there is no need for upholstery tools and compressors. It should be noted that equipment designed for processing chipboards is not suitable for working with natural wood. In the first case, sawing, grinding, milling, decorating machines are required. Slabs are cut with molding machines, drilling and edge processing equipment is required.
In a furniture store, it is better to focus on compliance with sanitary standards and room design. A professional designer is involved, especially if the outlet is for rich people. Expensive repairs and original exposition are required. It is advisable to organize a place for the rest of buyers with the opportunity to drink coffee, tea, buy water. It does not require large expenses, but the level of service increases. In the warehouse-store, the interior is simple, the main focus is on the distribution of products by halls and sections.
The number of users of online stores, including furniture stores, is growing. Websites are available from both manufacturers and merchants. It is important to attract a specialist who can optimize the resource and organize promotion in a specific region. If the site is constantly developed and updated, offline and online traffic increases quickly. If a factory opens, the brand quickly becomes popular, consumers begin to recognize the company.
In third place is the organization of exhibitions with preliminary distribution of business cards or leaflets, in fourth - groups in social networks. When writing texts, attention is focused on what the target audience is interested in:
We manufacture custom-made furniture from economy to luxury. We put kitchens, wardrobes and much more, everyone is happy. But unfortunately, few people know us, advertising is spent in clicks as just site views.
Our phone number 8 977 661 90 30
To answer
Good afternoon! We make dining groups to order. Solid wood products at chipboard prices. We make kitchen tables of any size, height, length, width, any wood tone. You can make a countertop using your materials (tiles, porcelain stoneware, etc.)
Dimass.ru website
Phone 8 499 136 31 38
To answer
Nowadays there are many private furniture manufactures, which often produce furniture of very low quality. Are there any product quality control mechanisms other than complaints from disappointed consumers who have already bought a bad item?
To answer
