Furniture is one of the popular products that are bought almost at any time of the year, regardless of the crisis situation. Although furniture replacement is not done very often, its sales volumes are quite serious, especially considering housing construction.
In addition to ordinary furniture for the population, office furniture is also popular, which is purchased in large volumes by legal entities. Therefore, opening a furniture store in most cases turns out to be a profitable and promising business. However, it is the features of this line of retailers that you need to consider when setting up your own business.
So, for example, opening a furniture store requires a large area of trading floors and warehouses. Even a relatively small furniture store requires a sales area of at least 200-300 square meters.
The specifics of the work of a furniture store is also associated with the need for spacious office space and warehouses. When choosing premises, it is necessary to take into account the availability of good entrances for trucks, and the possibility of building a parking lot for customers who spend a long time in the sales area of a furniture store.
When starting to implement a business project for a furniture store, it is necessary, with the help of marketing research, to determine for yourself the target buyer, the price range of the furniture being sold, which the furniture store is going to sell, and also decide on the specialization of the store.
A furniture store does not have to deal with the sale of the entire range of furniture. You can completely specialize in one type, which saves space while increasing the range.
For example, many furniture stores specialize in children’s furniture, kitchen or bedroom sets, sofas and beds, upholstered furniture, and so on.
It is extremely important for a furniture store to have reliable suppliers.
Therefore, many furniture stores start their activities on a franchise basis, which allows not only to solve business planning issues, but also to receive benefits for the supply of quality furniture. Other furniture stores, on the contrary, conclude contracts directly with furniture manufacturers. This allows us to respond more flexibly to customer requests, provide services for custom-made furniture, and promptly change defects.
Cooperation with furniture production is beneficial for the store, since intermediaries between production and sale are eliminated, there are opportunities to reduce consumer prices while increasing the trade margin.
Some furniture stores work only on the principles of ordering, displaying a limited number of samples on the trading floor, and offering customers to order goods based on catalogs. Naturally, this form of trade loses a lot compared to those options when the buyer can receive his furniture immediately after purchase or within a few days.
As for the organization of sales, it is desirable to pay special attention to the planning of retail space, as well as lighting and design of the trading floor.
The situation in a furniture store should have buyers to a leisurely choice of the required model. You also need to take care of competent customer advice from store managers. A certain part of the investment must be spent on staff training.
The initial cost of setting up a furniture store can be estimated at $2,000 to $5,000. In addition to repairing and decorating the interior of the premises, it is necessary to purchase a certain supply of furniture samples for the trading floor and create inventory in the warehouse if it is not possible to quickly receive goods directly from production.
The profitability of a furniture store, as a rule, is about 20-23% and allows you to recoup investments in the business within 1-1.5 years.
When creating a furniture store, organize the provision of additional services to customers, in particular, it is necessary to provide services for the delivery of furniture to the end consumer, as well as furniture assembly services at home.
Also important is the guarantee of replacement of defective or substandard parts.
All furniture stores that provide customers with a choice, for example, fabrics for upholstery of upholstered furniture or colors of worktops for kitchen sets, also receive competitive advantages. Such services are mainly provided by furniture stores that are directly related to the production of furniture.
The running costs of a furniture store are considerable. It is necessary to pay rent for large retail space, pay for transport services, make utility bills, and provide staff with salaries. Therefore, the creation of a furniture store should be attributed to costly types of business, for which a detailed business plan is so important.
Business plan , ordered on our website, will help you create a furniture store and reach profitability in a short time.
