Furnishing your home should give you warm and fuzzy feelings, not leave you frazzled and fed up! But unless you’re a carpenter with an eye for detail and design, you’re in real danger of getting lost in the abyss of ambiguous information like a coin that’s fallen out of your pocket and slipped beneath the cushions of your couch.
Furniture should be functional and hard-wearing, without lacking in style of course! You’ll generally have to pay a pretty penny for the pleasure of taking home all three.
We are a genuine 100% Australian owned “Business – 2 – Consumer” (B2C) company. Cutting out the middle man allows B2C to offer exceptionally crafted designs at half the price of its competitors so customers benefit from the significant savings.
B2C Furniture set out to build a furniture range with sustainable hardwood timber being the focal point of each design as opposed to most of their competitors who manufacture from cheap chipboard which ends up in landfills and pollutes our precious planet.
We have a range that has a five-pronged focus – bedroom furniture, kids beds, dining sets, living room furniture and furniture packages – all boasting clever space-saving storage solutions to cater to cramped, modern lifestyles.
Our website is our shop window. The emphasis on quality is evident at the click of a mouse.
There are a number of key features that differentiate our offering including;
- Intuitive, fast, and easy to navigate website
- Lifestyle pictures of our entire product range with in-depth descriptions
- The ability to deliver Australia-wide
- After browsing the range online, local customers can visit our showroom in Dandenong, Melbourne to see for themselves what exceptional value for money they’re getting.
- We openly inform our customers to visit our competitors, see what they’re offering, compare the price. Invariably when we do that they come back to us. We get so many repeat sales, because we’re creating a level of confidence in our brand. We have a conversion rate of more than 90 percent for customers who come into our showroom after viewing our range online
However, the single most important aspect which differentiates us from our competitors is our customer support.
In a competitive industry where most competitor transactions are emotionless, B2C pride ourselves on an endearing after-sales service that inspires strong feedback.
We have an in-house team that personally follow up with our customers once they have had a chance to enjoy their pieces in their homes and check in on how things are going. ‘did you receive the furniture, are you happy with it, do you have any issues or feedback?’
Product reviews are especially important for us, and we average 4.9 out of five stars. We were awarded “The Best National Furniture Store for 2020” by product review.
In addition to our online presence, we also have a physical showroom located in Dandenong Melbourne so that our customers are able to “touch and feel” the furniture in case they wish to do so.
Prior to Covid-19 roughly half of our sales were processed in our showroom and the other half were direct online orders placed via our website. When the initial Covid-19 lockdowns were imposed to tackle the first wave of the pandemic, we were hit with a real fear of being hit with at least a 50% loss of in-store sales.
But thankfully, this was not the case and we actually saw an uptake in our direct online sales increasing to offset the loss of in-store sales. In fact, during the first wave of Covid-19 lockdowns in Victoria our overall sales were 14% more than the same period last year.
Over the last few weeks where lockdowns are being reimposed in Victoria we are seeing a similar trend with online sales taking the lead.
In my opinion the Covid-19 Pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns has forced us all to be driven towards a way of life where shopping online is safe and convenient. We are seeing people of all ages and from all walks of life building trust with online retailers and realising the benefits of convenience, competitive pricing, fast home delivery, no crowds, and no sales pressure.
I strongly feel this trend will continue to grow and lead to greater proportions of the population gaining a sense of confidence with shopping online. Considering online sales contribute to approximately 6% of total retail sales, I believe that it will lead to significant increases in online shopping post Covid-19 and into the future.
Covid-19 has definitely posed many challenges for a traditional in-store business such as ours. However, committing to an online platform has definitely helped us grow through this pandemic.
This is Why;
1. It offers the flexibility to respond to unexpected events such as Covid-19 in a cost-effective manner
2. The growth of the internet and its penetration into the Australian household means virtually 95% of the population are now internet users.
3. The impact of Covid-19 has forced non-internet users kicking and screening to use the technology and understand the conveniences of doing so.
It was plainly obvious to me that getting online is mandatory for ALL Australian businesses.
