The furniture market in Russia is vast; new enterprises survive if they find a free niche in a particular region. It is important to note that competition is lower in the low and medium price categories. Sales volume depends on the size of the locality. 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 influence of competition.

Experts' forecasts are encouraging - small and medium-sized furniture businesses will reach 75% in the coming years. The most rational ones are small workshops that produce economy and middle class furniture of one type to order.

The advantages of the workshop include:

• small initial investments (900-1,300 thousand rubles)
• no need for large areas
• production process flexibility
• ease of changing the assortment
• the opportunity to become a monopolist in a separate niche

Manufacturing to order avoids the negative impact of competition. The low cost of finished products speeds up sales, which makes it possible to quickly return the initial investment.

But when choosing, you must also take into account the disadvantages. If the furniture is made by hand, it requires creativity and a lot of time. A small assortment can quickly saturate the market. But the workshop is a good option for the initial stage. How to promote a furniture business in the future depends on the circumstances. You can often change the range or expand production.

There is no need to buy premises for a workshop. The location (entrance), temperature (18°C) and humidity level (up to 70%) are important. This means that a ventilation and heating system is needed. Under unfavorable conditions, both raw materials and finished products can be damaged. The area should be enough for production, warehouses and administration premises.

Equipment for the workshop is purchased semi-automatic:

• cutting machine (manual feed) with cross and longitudinal cuts
• drilling machine for drilling open and blind holes
• Grinder
• edge banding machine

When making custom-made furniture, small tools are also needed: cutting machines, hammer drills, screwdrivers, drills, drill bits, knives, etc.

Reaches 25%, average payback period 2-2.5 years.

Features of retail outlets selling furniture

A furniture store can be of different sizes:

• from 300 m2, with narrow specialization (wide range of one product group)
• from 1,000 m2, hypermarket with a wide selection of goods from different groups, warehouses and parking lots
• salon in the city center with luxury goods for wealthy buyers
• warehouse store of finished furniture from the manufacturer

The premises for the hypermarket are selected in a residential area or outside the city in order to reduce the cost. A hypermarket should have a wide range of goods at different prices (from economy to luxury). Operational efficiency is enhanced by additional services.

The salon is small (from 30 m2), as buyers place orders from the catalogue. The room should have space 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 certain types of goods according to an individual design.

The amount of initial investment directly depends on the type of store. You can make your choice 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 quantity.

The advantages of the store include:

• stable demand for goods
• possibility of opening in almost any city
• opportunity to increase sales by launching an online store

But competition is high, since such stores already exist in any locality. Initial costs are high regardless of the type of outlet (can reach 2.5-3 million rubles), since a lot of funds are required to purchase goods. If the choice of assortment is unsuccessful, there is a possibility that the purchased product will be difficult to sell. In the best scenario and a 20-40% markup, the initial investment will pay off in 2 years.

Furniture factory: advantages and disadvantages

Under your own brand, you need from 30 million rubles. This option is a furniture workshop expanded several times. When equipping production with modern equipment, it is possible to achieve a profitability of 15-25% by supplying furniture throughout the region and country.

The advantages include:

• neutralization of competition due to a full production cycle and a wide range
• purchase of large volumes of raw materials at a reduced cost
• lower cost of finished products (compared to a workshop)
• consistency of wholesale sales with our own dealer network and well-developed marketing

Disadvantages of the factory:

• the need for large initial investments
• difficulties in choosing premises (large areas are required)
• high costs for the purchase of modern equipment
• difficulties with (requires special education and high qualifications)
• high costs for brand development and advertising due to competition

A furniture factory is worth opening if you have large investments and are willing to wait a long time for returns.

Criteria for choosing between a workshop, a store or a factory

When looking for an answer to the question of what 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 confident that you can manage production, you skip the workshop stage 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 economic conditions in the region and country are of great importance.

You can make money without having a lot of money for initial investment in a small space. The only condition is the availability of a raw material supplier offering cutting services. This allows you to avoid purchasing expensive equipment. When purchasing a semi-finished product, components and inexpensive tools for assembly are required. In such a situation, success depends only on the planning of the model and the quality of manual assembly. If the product meets customer needs, production can be expanded.

Even in a large factory it is impossible to produce all types 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 requires a special style. In addition, furniture is made not only from wood. Warehouses, banks and medical centers, chemical and food industries require metal furniture. This is a good option if such products are not produced in a particular region.

When opening a store, you should not start with a large area and a wide range. It is advisable to walk around the already operating stores in the city and determine what they offer. There is always a type of product that does not exist. It becomes the basis for forming the assortment of a specialized store. The advantage of this approach is the opportunity to become a monopolist in a small niche.

Purchasing equipment when starting a furniture business from scratch

Furniture can be kitchen, built-in, cabinet, upholstered, garden, specialized, for offices or children's and medical institutions. Equipment is purchased after selecting the type of product. A factory requires bulky machines and tools; in trade, a minimum amount of furniture for staff and customers is sufficient.

If you open a workshop and do not plan to cut the material yourself, then you buy hand tools: drills, screwdrivers, grinders, milling cutters, hair dryer, hammer drill, etc. Machines are expensive, you can buy them later (if desired), when a customer base and sales level have been formed will rise.

For a factory, equipment is selected depending on what is planned to be produced. For example, when making cabinet furniture, there is no need for upholstery tools and compressors. Please note that equipment designed for processing chipboards is not suitable for working with natural wood. In the first case, sawing, grinding, milling, and decorating machines are required. The slabs are cut using molding machines; equipment for drilling and edge processing is required.

In a furniture store, it is better to focus on compliance with sanitary standards and the design of the room. A professional designer is involved, especially if the outlet is for rich people. Expensive repairs and original exhibition are needed. It is advisable to organize a place for customers to relax with the opportunity to drink coffee, tea, and buy water. This does not require large expenses, but the level of service increases. In a warehouse store, the interior is simple, the main focus is on the distribution of products across halls and sections.

Ways to promote a furniture business

The number of users of online stores, including furniture stores, is growing. Both manufacturers and traders have websites. 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 and consumers begin to recognize the company.

In third place is the organization of exhibitions with preliminary distribution of business cards or leaflets, in fourth place are groups on social networks. When writing texts, attention is focused on what interests the target audience:

• For buyers of economy class furniture, the opportunity to obtain a loan and receive discounts, bonuses, gifts, delivery and assembly costs is important
• people with average incomes pay more attention to the popularity of the manufacturer and the environmental friendliness of the product
• in advertising for expensive furniture, it is important to emphasize exclusivity: expensive wood, popular brand, custom fittings (do not mention strength and durability)

We make custom-made furniture from economy to luxury. We installed kitchens, wardrobes and much more, everyone is happy. But unfortunately few people know us, advertising is spent on clicks as just site views.
Our phone number is 8 977 661 90 30

Answer

Good afternoon! We produce dining groups to order. Solid wood products at chipboard prices. We make kitchen tables of any size, height, length, width, any tone of wood. You can make a countertop using your materials (tiles, porcelain stoneware, etc.)
Website Dimass.ru
Phone 8 499 136 31 38

Answer

Nowadays there are many private furniture manufacturers, often producing furniture of very low quality. Are there any mechanisms to control product quality other than complaints from disappointed consumers who have already bought a bad item?

Answer

A couple of months ago I spoke at a conference for furniture business owners with the topic “Promoting premium products through social networks.” I was invited as a speaker by a company with which we had successful cooperation. The meeting was educational for everyone. Personally, I learned from it that many still do not realize that they can increase sales through social networks. That luxury products can be promoted through Facebook groups. That Instagram is an excellent platform for posting any product and that with the help of targeted advertising you can increase the flow of potential customers tenfold.

How to increase the flow of requests from social networks by more than 7 times in three months

Let's look at the example of my case, which was implemented with a supplier of elite Italian furniture who invited me to the conference. We were faced with three tasks:

1. Receiving a steady flow of applications to order various sets of Italian furniture, including kitchen sets.
2. Selling furniture on current promotion
3. Attracting potential clients to company events.

It is worth saying here that Italian luxury furniture is not at all a category that is widely popular among users of social networks. This is a complex and expensive product; a standard promotion scheme cannot be applied to it, and the potential consumer is very demanding. To achieve results with such starting points requires careful preparation and precise execution. I'll tell you how it happened in practice.

My case

Initially, we identified an audience that might be interested in luxury furniture. According to the analysis, 45% of it were people showing an interest in expensive things (premium audience), 45% were designers, architects and decorators (interest audience), and another 10% were close to the first two categories of users who showed interest in the site, groups or company advertising.

Next, we created groups, developing a custom design that would set the company apart from its competitors. The next step was a content plan, the goal of which was not to show the products as in a shop window, but to interest the target audience. Include it in interaction with the brand pages, make the brand itself recognizable and, as it were, “familiar” for potential buyers. Psychologists have long proven that we love what we are used to. Here the quality of content and its presentation came to the fore.

New subscribers came to the group and saw what they needed: articles and advice from leading designers, interior design options, full information about existing promotions plus additional promotions that we carried out ourselves, everything about caring for luxury furniture, reviews of products that interested them, photos and videos of original products and much more. They immersed themselves in the life of the group and as this process developed, the flow of applications for the purchase of luxury furniture through pages on social networks began to steadily increase.

Campaign results report

Let's compare reports for the first month of work and for the last reporting period (September 23 - October 20 and December 1 - 31, 2017).

The number of online applications increased more than 7 times in 3 months, and the cost of each application decreased 4 times from 544 rubles to 127 rubles. Considering that we are talking about a company whose average price for a set of furniture is hundreds of thousands of rubles, the cost of attracting a potential client of 127 rubles looks simply ridiculously small.

For example, regarding advertisements for kitchens: in monetary terms, for only 16,600 rubles spent by the client to promote a promotion for kitchen sets, we managed to receive 25 applications with an average cost of a kitchen of 700,000 - 800,000 rubles. And the cost of attracting one online application for this advertisement was only 664 rubles.

My secrets for promoting luxury goods on social networks:

1. A luxury brand claims exclusivity in everything, which means that by becoming a member of a social network - a community where communication has been and remains the highest value - it must acquire its own, unique “face” and “voice”.
2. Clients must become insiders. It is necessary to dose and carefully broadcast “closed” information through social networks: announcement of new products, limited collections, production secrets.
3. Involve users in direct communication with the brand. Create unique hashtags, invite customers to publish photos of purchased products, post the best ones on your account.
4. Conduct promotions and other activities, invite designers to private events, communicate with clients in online chats. Stay in touch with them constantly, work on the possibility of making an instant purchase or selecting a product directly on the page.

The main thing that is required to promote the luxury category of goods is an individual approach and attention to nuances. If in the mass market it is permissible to act according to schemes, then in the upper price segment the choice of tools cannot be typical. Each of them must be selected and customized to the specifics of the brand, not contradict its ideas and clearly demonstrate its mission, which is what we managed to do in this example.

Friends, if you need an oak cabinet, then here is a link where you can get all the necessary information!

Are you a furniture manufacturer and want as many potential buyers as possible to know about your products? Then you need to get serious about advertising. After all, it is known to be the engine of trade.

How to advertise furniture

Advertising manufactured furniture is an important part of the market strategy. You need to convince the buyer that your sofas are the best, and that these are the chairs he was looking for for his living room. Make the advertisement sincere, extol the value of your furniture a little, but do not mislead the buyer. Do not misrepresent products.

Make your advertising clear and impressive. Explain the meaning fully, do not make incomprehensible comparisons. Furniture is a simple product needed in every home. Therefore, create your slogans and videos simple and understandable for all residents of the city.

Analyze the effectiveness of your advertising. Ask your clients where they learned about you: from the Internet, television, newspapers, or saw your banner. Each of these advertising media has its own circle of admirers, depending on age, social status, and interests. This will give you the opportunity to determine the most effective type of advertising and further invest more in its financing.

However, do not spend on advertising amounts that will be unaffordable for your business. It is better to invest part of these funds in improving production. If your furniture is of high quality, then buyers will definitely pay attention to it.

Analysis of custom furniture sales. I’ll also tell you the features of the setup and how to make the campaign profitable.

But first there is a fly in the ointment. I customized all sorts of furniture and related themes. And I’ll say right away – when is it better not to advertise in context. Success is unlikely if:

1. You are a reseller. That is, there is no own production, you sit on a percentage of the manufacturer’s sales. Clicks in the furniture topic (especially custom furniture) are expensive. You will have sales, but everything is sour with the economy. You have a profit of 1000 rubles. from the order, and from the manufacturer - 10,000. With an average lead price of 300 -500 rubles. The manufacturer with the margin always wins.
2. If you have exclusive and very expensive furniture. There is little direct demand, and the client here is distrustful. In addition, people search for exclusive cabinets and regular cabinets using approximately the same key phrases. Selling a stool for 1000 dollars to someone who is looking for a stool for 800 rubles will not work. In short, it will be a little difficult here in the direct message.
3. Be careful if you have a mono-brand online store. See the frequency by product, is this brand being searched for? If there is a frequency, we look in the search results with whom we will compete. And there will definitely be a Yandex Market with the first bunch of dealers, and the second bunch - the same dealers in advertising plus the manufacturer’s store. If you pull in the competition, we’re welcome to set it up. But don't expect miracles.

But custom-made furniture in Direct is doing well. The article is about just that.

Furniture makers almost always have a bad website!

The main thing in receiving furniture orders is a good website. In advertising, the one who has it carefully thought out will win. If your website looks something like this, don’t go to Direct.

purring furniture - is it for cats or what?))

Multi-page site or landing page? From my practice, I concluded that landing pages for furniture work better. But not because of this format. As a rule, multi-page furniture websites have been around for many years. They are inconvenient; important commercial information (for example, about delivery, payment, portfolio) is spread across different pages. They generally look creepy on mobile phones; you want to close them right away. Such sites are usually run by experienced entrepreneurs with experience. Yes, they sold well once, when any site sold. But not now.

How to build information on a website so that there are requests

• Title and subject matter. If you advertise hallways or custom-made kitchens, do not send traffic to the main page, only to thematic sections. If a person enters the request “sliding wardrobes in Voronezh”, he will want to see the product right away.
• Description of the offer. Do not write “only we and only for you have top class furniture.” And give the following specifics: “Sliding wardrobes from the manufacturer at a price of 20 thousand rubles. 100 types of facades and fittings. We will produce it in 10 days. We’ll deliver and install it ourselves, and we’ll take away the trash.” Do you feel the difference?
• Next, you immediately show your product. It is possible by groups (L-shaped kitchens, classic, modern, some others) The larger the portfolio, the better, people like to look a lot and choose (especially women).

the correct category for cabinets - click on the required type for further selection

Important: all products must have detailed descriptions. Dimensions, thickness, what materials are used. There are also advantages that are immediately visible - 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

Work on trust. Show photos from production, the team, record a time-lapse video of furniture being made. By the way, my client implemented the latter on the website - conversion + 15%. People see that you are not a reseller, that you work, and their trust increases.

What else is available on the site? If you don’t have a ready-made portfolio, make sketches with descriptions and show what the finished product will look like. This also works: if we haven’t found your version of the kitchen, send us the picture you like, and we’ll do it. By the way, this is exactly how I ordered a kitchen for myself - I downloaded a picture from a foreign site, went to the furniture makers, and asked them to make me the same one.

Now we set up Direct

Be careful when 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 repairs, DIY installation, and maintenance. Plus there will be a lot of keys with the names of brands that you do not sell, the names of competing stores. Carefully minus all this at the collection stage.

• Product + to order (+ order)
• Product + buy (if you sell ready-made ones)
• Product + city
• Product + in installments (if you have an installment plan)

Important - if you only make to order, minus “ready-made”, “assembled”

We write the correct ad texts

The main thing is not to use your imagination. No creativity at all! Write exactly what you are selling + digital benefits. There is no need to write “the best kitchens in the region”, but “Kitchens from 50 thousand. Own production, 3 year warranty + free installation.” When searching, insert the city into the second heading.

A good example - benefits, prices, specifics

Setting up YAN

This is where the picture decides. Therefore, you show what you are selling on it. Don't take pictures from the Internet, but take them from your portfolio. The most important thing is to take a lot of pictures with one text for the test. And in another campaign - one picture with different texts in the ads. Please note that in YAN very often only the title of the ad is shown, but not the text. Therefore, pay special attention to the title. For example, “Custom hallways in St. Petersburg” works well, but “Any furniture is of high quality” works poorly.

A nuance - in search and in YAN, go to the campaign parameters and disable impressions on Yandex Images. Yes, yes, by default your ads will be shown in places where people come just to look.

Testing and analytics. What problems will there be?

First, we test bids on search and networks to get the desired coverage. You shouldn’t immediately increase the price before special placement; it can be very expensive during the search. But YAN works very well in custom-made furniture. If your 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 based on them. The difficulty is this: if you can provide tracking for sending an application form simply and free of charge, then with calls you need call tracking, but it costs money. There will be calls, but it’s impossible to track ads based on them and turn off those that don’t work without call tracking. Therefore, if most of the leads go to the phone, you will have to fork out money to track them. As a result, this will bring savings later when only those keys and ads for which there are requests remain on the campaigns.

If you sell custom furniture and need high-quality customization:

Furniture companies constantly contact us: Ellconte, Directoria-mebel, Mebsalon, Lazurit, City furniture studio. Each has its own priority area, for example, Ellconte deals with children's furniture, and Directoria-mebel deals with office furniture. Each had its own shortcomings. Having studied the characteristics of the company, we found an individual approach to each client and helped each one increase traffic and sales.

Marketing strategy for an online furniture store (Directoria-mebel)

It's all about technological progress. We are surrounded by smart gadgets and get almost all our information from the Internet. Libraries have been replaced by the Internet, gatherings in the yard have turned into gatherings in front of a monitor screen, shopping has become a “walk” through the catalog of an online store.

That is why in the modern world most stores have their own online counterpart.

And the Furniture Directory, of course, had a website, but it was an empty and uninformative business card site.

Before we start our work

Here's what we did:

• conducted a site audit;
• researched competitors' websites;
• We assembled a team consisting of designers (refinement of design), copywriters (writing selling texts), content managers (development of original and competitive content).

As a result, the site began to look like this.

After finalizing the design

After we changed the design, worked out the page structure and established internal linking, the failure rate was reduced by more than 2 times. A bad website drove away visitors - no one stayed longer than a minute. Now there is no such problem. It’s not hard to guess that the conversion rate into orders has also increased. And profit directly depends on this!

Conclusion: the appearance of the site initially attracts the client and keeps him on the site. We redesigned the site, leaving the main idea and color palette, but even the elaboration of such small details had a positive impact on customer attitudes. And in sales, of course.

Promotion of home furniture website (Lazurit)

Anyone who works in the furniture industry knows about the Lazurit company. This is the largest furniture retail chain in Russia, which has its own production. After an in-depth analysis, we decided to improve the site's pages to make it more enjoyable for the visitor.

The blue and white page is only suitable for Dynamo fans

The best offers in this form were posted on the main page of Lapis Lazuli. We renamed the block and changed both its design and the design of the entire site. In addition, we worked on the photographs: they became more realistic, colorful and attractive.

Brightness! Contrast!