Furniture retailer DFS recently announced impressive sales growth of 17.7% for the past year. This success was achieved thanks to a three-pronged business strategy:
1. Create ranges with broader appeal
2. Expand physical presence – open more stores
3. Develop the omnichannel
The first two strategies are quite standard for any retailer, particularly in furniture, which is not frequently purchased. It’s important to appeal to a broad range of customers or else your brand becomes defined in a certain way. It’s also important to have any many retail outlets as your business can afford to support.
But I was really interested to see that the key business development strategy of DFS includes the use of omnichannel retail – and with a boost in sales of almost 18% there is a clear argument that their strategy is working.
DFS overhauled the customer journey with a focus on omnichannel. Some highlights of the changes were:
1. Adding online order tracking to their website so customers always know where their products are.
2. Creating a new online product viewer on the website to offer a much better visual experience when shopping online.
3. Rolling out in-store technology that allows customers to see products in many more situations and colour ranges.
Their focus has not just been about making the online shopping experience better – although their website now accounts for about 40% of all furniture-related web traffic in the UK – but also improving the in-store experience. Giving employees and customers the ability to visualise the furniture they can see in entirely different surroundings adds to the in-store experience and clearly is helping to drive sales.
It’s great to hear success stories from companies like DFS, showing that an intelligent use of the omnichannel can translate into genuine business growth. http://internetretailing.net/2016/03/dfs-focuses-omnichannel-reports-ecommerce
Author: Nora Boros, Global Director, Webhelp Webhelp's Global Director Nora Boros looks forward to presenting at the 2019 Digital Travel Summit next week, where she will join more than 300 travel innovators from Europe's most progressive travel retailers. Here she takes a look at the complexities of the sector as a whole and how smooth customer journeys can drive positive emotional responses...
As an international healthcare services organization, Direct Medica develops and implements innovative solutions to reshape the relationships between healthcare professionals, patients, industry players, hospitals and payers. For the past two years, the company has been developing a very...
It’s World Environment Day! The perfect time to announce that Webhelp is switching to 100% recycled paper across all its sites across the United Kingdom. World Environment Day is a United Nations spotlight designed to drive worldwide awareness and action to protect the environment. Webhelp...
...
Webhelp's Director of IT services, Stephen Dickson, joined record breaking Cystic Fibrosis warrior, Josh Llewellyn-Jones, this week, as he attempted his latest endurance feat by cycling from Edinburgh to Cardiff in just five days. Stephen cycled with Josh and his team for the final three days of...
Strictly Necessary Cookies
The website requires the use of cookies for essential functional requirements and these are outlined in the cookies policy.
Enhanced Functional Cookies
Some features of this website use services provided by third parties websites. These features use cookies to implement their services on this website and may collect data about your visit to help them optimize their functionality. The Webhelp cookies policy outlines the cookies used by these services.