Online retailer The Furniture Market commissioned an independent online survey of 2000 adults to explore their buying behaviour and opinions on the credibility of furniture sales.
“After the backlash against the industry’s sales last year, we wanted to see what people’s thoughts now were,” says a spokesperson for The Furniture Market. “A stand-out result for us was that 63.25% of the people said they wait for the sales to buy their main items of furniture, which I guess shows how customers still believe this is where they can get the best deals.”
Some of the other results were:
• 30.2% believe you find the best prices on furniture items at large chain retailers, and 24.65% believe you find the best prices on online stores
• 63.25% said they tend to wait for the sales to buy their main items of furniture, and the majority (42.2%) admitted only 0-25% of their furniture was actually bought at full price
• Nearly half of the respondents (47.45%) said they always research online regarding price, reviews, quality, etc before making a purchase, and only 6.25% of respondents said they never do
• 46.3% of those surveyed believe the worst part of in-store furniture shopping is pushy sales assistants, and over three quarters of (76.45%) said they don’t trust salespeople to tell the truth. Availability of stock (15.65%) was the second-worst aspect of in-store furniture shopping
• The majority of respondents (70.05%) do not tend to believe that the higher the RRP of an item, the better the quality
• Nearly a quarter of respondents (74.8%) had never asked a sales assistant about the reference price of a piece of furniture in the sale (how long the reference price was used for or how many sales they achieved at the original price)
• 47.45% have tried haggling or discounting a full-priced piece of furniture, and 84.51% of those have successfully achieved a discount or haggled down price. However, only 32.8% have successfully haggled down or achieved a discount price on a piece of sale furniture
