Today’s furniture shoppers bounce between browsing sofas on Instagram at midnight and testing fabric swatches in your showroom on the weekend. They expect this journey to be smooth, regardless of where they interact with your brand, and unified commerce makes that possible. But behind the scenes, many furniture retailers struggle with disconnected systems that create friction for customers and staff.
Let’s fix that.
Beyond Buzzwords: What Unified Commerce Means
You’ve heard “omnichannel” thrown around for years. Unified commerce goes deeper.
While omnichannel focuses on maintaining consistent branding across customer touchpoints, unified commerce integrates all your sales channels, data, and back-end systems onto a single platform. It’s not just about looking consistent—it’s about operating as one cohesive business.
The difference matters. Many technology providers cobble together separate systems with middleware, creating a digital Frankenstein that technically “works” but causes headaches with syncing issues, delayed information, higher costs, and disappointing customer experiences.
True unification means your ecommerce and Point of Sale (POS) systems share the same foundation, with product, order, and customer data flowing from a single source of truth.
Why Furniture Retailers Can’t Ignore This Shift
Furniture purchases aren’t impulse buys. Your customers research online, visit showrooms to touch fabrics and test comfort, consult your design experts, and navigate complex logistics like custom finishes and delivery scheduling.
Supporting these extended sales cycles is nearly impossible without a unified system and connected data. Consider these real challenges furniture retailers like Bambi Baby, Jenni Kayne Home, and Parachute faced before unifying their technology:
- Manual Bottlenecks: retailers used pen and paper for in-store orders, creating checkout lines so long that customers walked out.
- Inventory Confusion: Without a unified view of inventory across locations, retailers couldn’t confidently offer same-day pickup.
- Customer Amnesia: Staff couldn’t access online purchase history in-store, making personalized service nearly impossible.
- Operational Chaos: Managing multiple systems meant double-entry, reconciliation headaches, and wasted time that could have been spent helping customers.
The Unified Commerce Advantage for Furniture Stores
When furniture retailers integrate their technology through unified commerce, three powerful things happen:
1. Customer Experience Transforms
Your shoppers can now seamlessly move between channels. They might start designing their living room online, visit your showroom to finalize fabric choices and complete their purchase via a mobile checkout anywhere in your store. Your staff can access their complete history and preferences and offer flexible fulfillment options, creating personalized and smooth experiences that will keep furniture shoppers coming back.
2. Operations Become Effortless
Managing inventory, orders, and customer data from one platform eliminates the back-office gymnastics your team performs daily. Real-time inventory visibility across all locations allows you to confidently sell the last blue sectional in your warehouse, even if a customer is currently in your showroom. Bookkeeping simplifies, and staff management becomes more straightforward.
3. Growth Accelerates
The results are dramatic when you remove friction from both the customer journey and your operations. Conversion rates climb, average order values increase, and customer loyalty strengthens. Additionally, you gain better insights for retargeting and making personalized recommendations when shoppers return based on their online and in-person shopping behavior. Plus, opening new locations becomes significantly easier when your technology scales with you.
Real Results from Furniture and Home Goods Retailers
The impact of unified commerce isn’t theoretical. Look at what these retailers achieved:
After unifying with Shopify, Bambi Baby transformed its checkout process from minutes to seconds. This efficiency helped drive a 30% growth in conversion rates and average order values. With unified inventory visibility, it confidently stocked stores for same-day pickup and expanded its retail footprint.
Jenni Kayne Home more than doubled its brick-and-mortar presence after unifying its commerce platform. Its staff now sells items not physically in stock through “endless aisle” capabilities, shipping directly from its warehouse. Its Trade Program members receive quotes directly through the POS, and staff training time plummeted thanks to intuitive systems.
Parachute saw a 12% increase in retail average order value over five years and a staggering 500% increase in Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) revenue over four years. By unifying their systems, they leveraged stores as fulfillment centers for ship-from-store orders and created personalized marketing based on unified customer profiles. Perhaps most impressive, they reduced operational expenses by over $1 million annually by simplifying their tech stack.
Beyond the Basics: Furniture-Specific Solutions
Furniture retail has unique needs that go beyond standard commerce functions. Through integrated apps and the ability to create custom solutions, Shopify’s unified platform seamlessly supports furniture-specific requirements like:
- Managing custom work orders
- Enabling product customization (think fabric options and finishes)
- Handling delivery scheduling and logistics
Building Your Unified Future
As the furniture market evolves, integrated technology isn’t optional—it’s essential for survival and growth. Disconnected systems create inefficiencies that eat into margins and frustrate customers.
Adopting a unified commerce platform like Shopify allows you to connect your online and physical stores seamlessly, centralize complex operations, empower your staff, and build stronger customer relationships.
The success stories of retailers like Bambi Baby, Jenni Kayne Home, and Parachute demonstrate that unified commerce provides the foundation for sustained growth in the dynamic world of furniture retail.
Your customers already expect a seamless experience. Isn’t it time your technology delivered it? Learn how to get started.
