Our marketing recipe for selling sofas online
Selling sofas online can be a complicated business, whether for a manufacturer or a retailer. In fact, how do you get Internet users to make a purchase when they’re used to trying out a sofa before buying it?
To sell sofas online, the solution can be summed up in 5 steps:
- Build brand awareness,
- Develop your website and be present on social networks,
- Develop partnerships,
- Create the right ambience,
- Promote after-sales service.
Brand awareness, the No. 1 asset for online sofa sales
If someone mentions “Poltrone e Sofa”, “Château d’Ax” or “Ikea”, you’re probably familiar with these brands. And that’s not by chance: the publicity surrounding these brands means that you remember these sofas. And even if you haven’t tested the comfort of these sofas, you still have an idea of their quality.
Advertising, whether on TV, the Internet or elsewhere, is therefore an undeniable, if not unavoidable, asset. You need to devote a substantial budget to building brand awareness. The more people hear about you, the more your brand will be remembered. So when people visit your website or a partner site, they’re more likely to be interested in what you have to offer.
And to make your brand known to the general public for the purpose of selling sofas online, you’ll have no choice but to showcase your products. This will necessarily involve high-quality visuals, as B&B Italia have done in the visual above.
But unless you have a large budget that allows you to stage all your products in different universes, the most economical and equally qualitative solution will be to use 3D visuals of sofas. An agency specializing in 3D visuals can create photorealistic illustrations of your products for use in your advertising campaigns.
An attractive site to sell sofas online
Whether you’re a sofa manufacturer or a retailer, you’ll need a website to sell your products.
To do this, you can call on the services of a web design agency, or create your own if you have some knowledge of the subject. In fact, it’s possible to create a website by buying a ready-to-use theme for around forty euros! By following the tutorials available on the web, you’ll be able to design your online storefront quickly and easily.
Afterwards, you’ll still need to call on the services of a web SEO to ensure that your site ranks well on Google and other search engines. We strongly advise you to keep a regularly updated blog, so that you can position your site on a large number of keywords and appear more easily in search results.
Remember, to sell sofas online, you need to have a presence on the web! To do this, you can also invest in social networks like Facebook, Pinterest or Instagram. There, you’ll post lots of photos featuring your products. And here again, to share a large number of visuals at an affordable price, the solution lies in 3D visualization of sofas.
As we do at Studio 3D, you can request the modeling of a sofa and choose several variations of the same sofa in different moods. This service gives you access to several visuals at a very attractive price.
Boost your online sofa sales through partnerships
The quickest and easiest way to sell sofas online is to create partnerships. Obviously, this solution is less popular because it involves sharing the profit margin.
But when volumes are high, and you want to build brand awareness at a lower cost, it’s probably a good idea to set up partnerships.
By “partnership” we mean Internet distribution platforms such as Amazon or Cdiscount. You can also call on discount sites such as Groupon or Vente Unique, which are increasingly visited by French Internet users. In fact, we’ve written a short guide to selling your furniture on Groupon.
However, to be able to sell sofas in large quantities on these sites, you’ll need to present your furniture in the most attractive way. You’ll need to emphasize :
- The most complete product description possible,
- 3D visuals of sofas in attractive settings,
- Efficient after-sales service.
It’s imperative to insist on photo-realistic visuals of your sofas, for several reasons:
- Unlike a photo with a simple white background, the customer is immediately attracted by the atmosphere created by the photo.
- A 3D setting of a sofa allows the Internet user to project himself and imagine your sofa in his own home.
- A high-resolution 3d visual allows you to see the precise details of your product – as you can see by hovering over the following visual.
Selling sofas online: putting after-sales service first
The biggest fear Internet users have when considering buying a piece of furniture online is after-sales service.
What do we do if we don’t like the sofa after all? Is there a free returns policy?
In our opinion, it’s in your best interest to implement a “satisfied or your money back” policy. If the sofa’s seating is not satisfactory, or if there are manufacturing defects, you should offer to collect the sofa free of charge. Even if this implies a high cost, it conveys two important points about your brand:
- You’re so confident of the quality of your product that you’re willing to take back your merchandise free of charge,
- You guarantee that your merchandise will be free of defects, because if it isn’t, you’ll take it back.
Don’t hesitate to communicate widely about this policy when proposing your offers, both on your own website and those of your partners.
Selling sofas online is ultimately a question of common sense. With the right tools and the right presentation of your products, you’ll make your mark in this highly competitive market.
If you need computer-generated 3D visuals of sofas, don’t wait any longer and contact us for a quote!
