How much does your showroom resemble the space 10 years ago? How about last season? You understand the importance of a strategically-laid out showroom. You get that if it never changes, the showroom goes stale for customers. Furniture trends come and go. Seasons change. New collections get released. Changes, even small ones, can help you remain competitive. And will help your company stays profitable. So what can you do to your website to make it feel like new? A fresh look will help your website experience the same benefits you get when you change up your showroom. The best retail websites design doesn’t have to happen overnight. You can start taking steps now to update your site. As experts in the retail website industry, we have the 5 best retail websites design tips. Let’s explore 5 of the easiest and most cost-effective website updates you can implement now.
Why Do You Need to Update Your Website?
Websites have changed tremendously in just five years. If you haven’t updated the homepage in a few years it probably looks dated. Which means it certainly isn’t a reflection of your showroom. Your website is an extension of your showroom. It’s important to keep brand consistency and use the best retail websites design ideas to match your store. Plus if you’re not staying up-to-date, you’re not getting the ROI that you could be out of your website. The best retail websites design companies today employ advanced analytics software to non-invasively and anonymously collect customer data. They use it to improve your customers’ online experiences.
Your website is your flagship store for customers today. Customers who never set a foot in your physical store visit it and buy there. If it’s not what it could be, you may be missing more sales than you make in your physical store. This is all about unlocking your hidden potential.
When customers love your website and can find exactly what they’re looking for, it’s easier to make the sales and keep them coming back. People spend more money on modern websites that deliver a modern experience. They don’t spend money on a website that looks like they were “left behind“ for another era. Updating your site probably isn’t as hard as you think, as we’ll explore with these updates.
1. Redesign the Home Page
Your home page is like your storefront. It gets people’s attention and showcases some of your best collections. People instantly see what’s new and what’s hot when they hit that “storefront“. Instead of display windows, you have rich, HD, visual imagery and slideshows that makes a visitor want to click and explore your website. What should a modern furniture homepage look like? What do your customers today expect? Let’s take a look at some key home page elements:
Make Your Homepage Entrance Powerful
The visual nature of furniture can only be superseded by clothing fashion. In the same way both men and women purchase clothing, potential customers need to be able to envision your furniture in their homes. That means creating gorgeous photography with the best lighting and configuration, from the best angles. What’s trending in homepage design? Make the top fold the most visually-appealing section of your website. You have less than 4 seconds to capture a shopper’s attention. Like we’ve mentioned before, this homepage space should be refreshed often to give a new feel or new understanding of what you offer in store.
Images should evoke a feeling. Employ imagery to make people feel inspired, delighted, and even longing for a change in their dining or living room. Millions of people pin images on Pinterest and follow brands on Instagram because the visuals make them feel something. Bringing this to your homepage is one of the best retail websites design ideas you’ll find.
Showcase Store Promotions or Events 
Invest in full-width, high-quality room scene images for your website. Make all images clickable so someone is never caught off-guard when they click an image and it does nothing. Those clickable images lead your customer to a certain collection, so they find exactly what they were looking for, including all the complementary pieces. And voila!, that customer just spent a lot more.
Speaking of clickable, let’s look at navigation.
Design a Simple Navigation
From your homepage, make it easy for customers to find what they’re looking for on your site. Even if they don’t really know what that product is yet. When we talk about website navigation, it’s important to use data to make your decisions. Often times, we want to make changes to our website because we feel it’s the right decision. However, your customers may not follow your intention. Watch how customers use your website and optimize your navigation to make that process easier and faster. Some starting steps can be very simple. Keep the menu as small as possible, employing common menu practices. Your home page menu isn’t the place to express your endless creativity. Be sure to add a search function so customers can quickly go from the home page to shopping for more furniture.
Now, on to more of the best retail websites design ideas you can apply to update your site.
2. Add Content Throughout the Website
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times in the last 6 months. Personalization will be the differentiator in retail this year. Why? Because consumers are expecting personalized experiences and technology is available to provide it. 85% of people are aware that businesses today track them, often anonymously, on their website. 49% say they’re okay with that if you’re using that collected data to offer them a more personalized experience. Among millennials and younger GenXers, those rates are often higher. They expect personalization.
How are you delivering this personalized experience that people online now expect?
A Forbes Magazine-reported study found that:
- Few businesses are offering a truly personalized experience. In furniture those rates are even lower, giving you a competitive advantage if your website can get personal.
- Customers today expect you to use data collected to remember who they are and what they like.
- 7% of customers say they actually get frustrated if there is no personalization on a website. Many more aren’t frustrated but would prefer more personalization.
- 49% say they buy more “on impulse“ when something is recommended to them based on their preferences.
- 40% say that they have purchased a more expensive item that was recommended to them when they were looking at a similar less expensive item.
- Only 5% of those surveyed said they returned something they purchased on impulse. Because the suggestion was personalized, 85% actually appreciated impulse buys more.
- 44% say that they repeatedly shop at stores that personalize the experience.
Does it seem like customer loyalty no longer exists? Is it getting harder to get people in a physical store where your amazing sales team can personalize the experience? Online personalization offers you the answer. 
How to Incorporate Personalized Pop-Ups
You don’t have to have any personally identifying information to personalize pop-ups. Simply:
- Track the items they visit.
- Automate popups to show the right popups at the right time
- Show a person three to four other items based on what they’ve visited
You can show them:
- Complementing items. “People who bought that also bought this“
- A higher priced item. If they’re looking at a clearance table and you have a similar and better one that costs more, show it. “People who like that may also like this“
- What’s hot! Based upon their search history, show them the latest and greatest within their preferences.
You can also increase signups for your marketing newsletter to capture a sales lead you can nurture with email automation and segmentation. Offer to give them a discount on {type/brand of furniture they searched for} in exchange for signing up for your newsletter.
3. Re-evaluate How You Rank Products
When someone does a search on your site, what do you show them first? Priced inventory? Best sellers? Sale items? If you’re not customizing your search results, you’re missing out on this opportunity to put the “hottest items“ front and center. Sell more and sell higher priced items with this simple website update. But this isn’t the only way people search for items. As you seek to create the best retail websites design, give people options that help them narrow their searches and find what they’re looking for. Take a look at some of the best ways to do that:
Put Best Sellers First
If it’s hot, it’s hot. You know this from years of selling out of a showroom. One thing you’ll notice quickly as the website sales increase (because you have the best retail websites design in town!) is that if you sold it before, you’re more likely to sell again. That is until it goes completely out of style.
When someone searches, automatically sort the listings by “Most popular“, then everything else. This not only shows items that a person is more likely to be looking for; it also applies the art of “peer pressure“ or “social persuasion“. When people know that others like something, they take a closer look and are more likely to like it too.
Yes, it’s just like when your middle schooler wants that pair of Sketchers, iPhone, or scooter all the cool kids have. It’s not unlike that video that has 1000 likes on Facebook so you decide to watch it and like it too.
Add Status Tags
This tip comes in a distant second to the above, but it can still help you update your site to get more sales. Add tags for Hot Buys, Best Sellers, Clearance, Featured Product, Coming Soon, New, etc. These grab attention and often lead people to spend more money on impulse.
4. Strategically Place Your Call to Actions
The best retail websites design converts, converts, converts, but it never does it in a way that seems overly salesy. Customers today don’t like “salesy“, but they do like a clear call to action (CTA). They want to almost immediately know where you want to click to. Like this example call to action here.
- Buy now
- Add to my room plan
- Request Information
- Get the newsletter
- Customize it Now
- Claim your discount
Use clear, action language and distinctly set them apart with a button. Making your CTA actually look like a button can increase conversions by 45%. Setting it apart from other text so that it stands out can increase clicks by over 200%.
Put a call to action button clearly stating how a person takes the next step on each page. Place one on your product page, collections page, and home page to increase your sales.
Who knew that something so simple could make such a huge difference on your site! The next update can make an even greater impact.
5. Put Interactive Tools on Your Website
Customers today expect websites to be interactive with tools that help them make a decision. If you’re not offering these kinds of tools, one of your competitors will. Then guess who makes the sale. Two very important tools you can quickly apply include:
Online Room Designer
A modern online room designer helps a customer create a realistic representation of a room in their home. Today those amazing — and previously very expensive — tools that interior designers use, anyone on your website can use to create the perfect room piece by piece. They’ll never be surprised again when the sofa is bigger or smaller than it “looked“ online or in your showroom. These designers allow your customers to re-create the dimension of their room along with the location of doors and windows to “see“ what a collection looks like in their space before they buy it.
Wouldn’t it be great if your customers could virtually:
- Place the furniture they want in their room with a simple drag and drop
- Add rugs and accent pieces that increase the value of this sale
- Get a complete list of the items they need to purchase to make that perfect room a reality
- Share their design with others to get feedback from friends and family
They can with an online room planning technology.
Sharing can create a friendly “social pressure“ to spend a little more and get the room they really want and it may encourage the recipient to design their own room. That’s a win-win for you and your customers.
Custom Furniture Draping
Custom furniture draping allows a customer to see a piece of furniture in the fabrics and finishes they plan to purchase. Do you make your customer guess what that coffee table looks like in cherry finish? With a click, they can change the item to a different, color, finish or pattern. You don’t have to take multiple extra pictures. With draping, it can all be done through programming and an easy-to-use customer interface.
Not only can customers use these tools. Train your salespeople to integrate these helpful tools into the showroom sales experience when people come into your physical store. For the same reasons people find them so helpful online, customers also love them when buying in person. Since the customers they help by more when using these tools, it incentivizes them to learn these tools to help customers.
Best Retail Websites Design Updates for Your Furniture Site
The best retail websites design updates don’t have to be complicated. You can start taking small steps with your site that will make a real and instantaneous difference. Update your homepage. Make it visual and stunning. Personalize your customers experience with suggestions and other highly relevant popups. Rank the search results the right way to get more sales on hot items. Be strategic about where you place CTA button and more importantly use them. They work. Implement interactive tools that help customers make decisions and don’t forget to train your sales team to use them to increase sales on the floor as well. Are you ready to update your site and make it feel new? Schedule a furniture website demo today.
