Understanding why furniture shoppers browse online but buy in store

What is shaping wood & timber

Wood, plywood, laminates and furniture are sold through a chain of influencers: carpenters, contractors, architects and dealers often decide the brand before the homeowner does.

• Carpenters and contractors heavily influence brand choice
• Dealers balance margins, credit and brand pull
• Sustainability and certified timber matter more to buyers

A furniture retailer in North America, working in Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago & Dallas. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A furniture retailer in North America

Sector

Wood & timber

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Consumer panel, Online surveys, Digital analytics & reporting

The retailer’s website attracted heavy traffic, but most sales still happened in stores. Management wanted to understand the role the website played and whether to invest in online selling or store visits.

• Deliver on the brief: understanding why furniture shoppers browse online but buy in store.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of recent furniture buyers.
• Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 5 weeks.

The work focused on 1,500 recent furniture buyers.

• recent furniture buyers1,500

Audiences we typically reach in wood & timber

Carpenters and contractorsArchitects and interior designersDealers and distributorsHomeownersFurniture buyers

Coverage: Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago & Dallas. Markets: Canada and United States.

• Canada
• United States

A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Online survey
3. 3Website analytics review
4. 4Insight

We surveyed recent furniture buyers about their research and purchase journey, then compared the findings with website analytics and store visit data.

Consumer panelOnline surveysDigital analytics & reporting

recent furniture buyers

1,500

• Business respondents were screened on role, company size and involvement in the decision before being invited.
• Online respondents were drawn from verified panel members who matched the screening criteria, with quotas on key profile attributes.

• The online survey was mobile-friendly and offered in respondents' languages.

• Digital fingerprinting and duplicate checks
• Attention, speed and straight-lining checks
• Review of open-ended answers
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
• Significance testing on the differences that mattered
• Interactive dashboard for ongoing tracking

• Buyers used the website to shortlist and compare, then visited stores to check comfort and finish.

For high-touch products, the website’s job is often to bring people to the store.

• Build on the core insight: for high-touch products, the website’s job is often to bring people to the store.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: buyers used the website to shortlist and compare, then visited stores to check comfort and finish.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The retailer added “book a store visit” and stock-availability features online, connecting the two channels instead of treating them separately.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables
• Interactive dashboard

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: how do homeowners judge quality?