4 Key Trends in the Furniture Industry
As we face several changes in technology and the economy, the furniture industry is not exempted from the rise of new key trends.
No matter if you run a traditional business or a modern one, you need to have an idea of the trends in the field. This will help you know the needs of your market and keep up with them. Otherwise, expect that your furniture brand will be like any other. Worse, potential customers may even overlook it and view it as outdated.
To give you a brief guide, we have prepared the 4 key trends in the furniture industry, all in the following sections.
Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Furniture
A lot of consumers, most especially in the furniture industry, aim to live a sustainable life. Thus, they end up looking for furniture pieces that are ethically produced. This means that it maintained an eco-friendly manufacturing process. This trend is mainly powered by environmental concerns.
Taking this into account, a lot of furniture-based businesses have already started creating eco-friendly furniture, or those out of recycled items.
The first step to going ahead of this trend is to figure out how to make products with the least trees possible. Moreover, you can turn to ecological woods like acacia and bamboo.
As a business figure, one advantage that you can get from this is higher profit. Eco-friendly furniture pieces tend to be priced higher. Even so, expect that its demand is continuously rising.
Advanced Customization Technology
In the present, simply having a made-to-order system can’t cut it. More consumers are starting to want to design their own furniture pieces instead of solely getting inspiration from the internet.
For a clearer view: furniture buyers want a system where they can have a blank canvas. This is similar to having an AI generator for designs, except that an actual user controls it. For a better comparison, refer to an actual editing platform for orders.
This trend can get quite complicated. To keep up, you may need to invest in tech specialists and engineers. A successful take on advanced customization, however, guarantees a larger market base for your business.
On a side note, one con of this trend is the greater difficulty in stocking up on resources. As customers will surely have varying designs, it may take some time for you to adjust your inventory to their needs.
Need for Online Presence
Although online profiles have long existed and are needed, consumers of the furniture industry are still constantly looking for an online presence.
In this trend, instead of providing a simple catalog of your products, what your brand does, and where they can contact you, the market wants to be able to do everything on one platform.
For example, if you have a website, they want to be able to message you, fill up an order, and schedule a delivery or pick-up. Some furniture brands already offer this feature.
This trend is powered by building convenience and efficiency between your brand and your customers. Thus, the same two factors are what you should look at when responding to this trend.
In addition to this, you should have responsive social media accounts. Long gone are the days where you can settle for websites, a phone number, and an email.
Rise of Multi-Purpose Furniture
For the last trend, we will talk about the rise of multi-purpose furniture.
Basically, this trend requires furniture pieces to serve more than one purpose. For instance, a table can serve as a bed or bench in just a simple turn. You can actually see several items like this on online furniture shops.
This trend mainly requires versatility in design and structure.
Summary
To better understand the 4 key trends that we previously discussed, you have to look at three main fields. To be specific, you should look at the technology, environment, and market. These have the most significant effects on the furniture industry.
Looking back, keeping up with the trends will definitely take a little of your time and money. For instance, you have to invest in research studies about how to achieve sustainable solutions whilst still being able to make a profit.
The easiest trend to get a hold of lies in online presence. Simply having a functional website and well-managed social media sites will already be enough to get you a head start.