How YipitData Helps Furniture Retailers Make Sense of an Evolving eCommerce Market

Background

In the middle of the pandemic, amid a massive eCommerce boom, a large furniture retailer came to YipitData needing to contextualize their performance versus competitors. By working with YipitData, the retailer is now able to track overall and category-level performance relative to competitors across both online and offline channels on a weekly basis, syncing teams around a single source of truth. In turn, they’re able to improve forecasting and decision making across marketing, sales, merchandising, inventory management, and more.

Client Questions

How am I performing relative to my competition?

Will consumer demand for furniture sustain amid inflation?

Solution

The retail boom in 2021 proved good for mid-priced furniture retailers, with all brands aside from American Signature Furniture seeing strong growth in GMV throughout 2021. In 2Q21 specifically, retailers saw up to 140% GMV growth vs 2Q20. However, market growth has slowed down. In 4Q21, brands saw an average 11% YoY growth in GMV. However by 1Q22, the average growth dropped to 2%. 

Despite a growing market, competition in the space is fierce. La-Z-Boy has the largest market share and is seeing the largest growth in market share. La-Z-Boy (+2.2pp), Bassett Furniture (+0.5pp), and City Furniture (+0.6pp) are the only brands that have seen gains in market share between 1Q22 and 1Q21. In 2020, Raymour & Flanigan overtook Rooms To Go, but has been unable to keep up momentum with market share falling nearly 1 pp(1Q22 vs 1Q21). 

As the cost of goods and inflation rises, order values have also increased. Bassett Furniture has the highest average order value, with customers spending over $2,000 per order. 2022 YTD, AOV increased by an average of $160 YoY. 

Despite demand leveling out vs 2021, consumers are currently still willing to pay a premium for their furniture needs.