Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM FEBRUARY 2015 52 Mike Allen Furniture Trends GETTING TO KNOW THE M ILLENNIAL SHOPPER Why you need to cater to this burgeoning market in 2015 and beyond By all counts, 2015 is going to be a good year economically. The housing market is predicted to grow, and continue to grow, as millennials—who accounted for 37% of home shoppers this summer according to the National Association of Retailers—get better jobs and begin to buy houses. "Millennials are the largest generation of people in the U.S. and represent 60 percent of first-time homebuyers," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for realtor.com. "They are also more likely than any other group to purchase a home in the next year." An uptick in the housing market always means an uptick in home furnishing purchases. Is your business ready? If not, the first step is to understand the way millennials shop. First and foremost, the millennial is a digital shopper. Products are either purchased online or they are scouted and vetted digitally via apps, social media, and online. "Between June and September 2014, over half of adults aged 21-34 visited real estate websites or mobile apps. And this is the cusp—get ready for the millennial wave to drive the housing market for decades," said Smoke. Just like they shop for homes online, they also shop for furniture and other goods digitally. Putting an ad in a newspaper to attract a millennial is mostly a waste of time and money. We've talked extensively in the past about the importance of social media to market your store. But there are other tools that can help attract the millennial. For one, Google Business View, which lets digital shoppers take a virtual 360-degree walk-through of your store, helps the digital shopper know whether the type of inventory you offer and the quality of your store are a match for his or her needs. To get your Google Business View in motion, simply contact Google, schedule a photo shoot through them, and the photographer handles the rest. Customers can then see a 360-degree virtual tour of your business on Google Search, Google Maps and Google+. Jim Davenport, BrandSource member and co-owner of Lafferty's Home Center in Texarkana, Texas believed that Google Business View was an inexpensive way to advertise his relatively new location. "One of the most difficult things to do today is to reach customers via whatever media they are using. As a consumer if I could see what the inside of the store looks like, I could tell if they might have what I'm looking for," he says. "This virtual tour allows the consumer to shop at home. And we plan to update it annually at least as our inventory changes." If you are going to dive into Business View, you need to be ready. Spruce up the store with fresh paint, fill any missing spots on the showroom floor, replace stained ceiling tiles, etc. With Business View done right and giving potential customers a glimpse of your store and inventory, you'll have a leg up on those competing for millennial dollars. Because you're dealing with the highly digital shopper, you also need to make your website as visible as possible, which takes a little work. By optimizing your site for search engines (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), you'll see a dramatic improvement in your page rankings for certain keyword searches. "Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are critical to the success of retailers," says Mark Baird, managing partner of BrandSource Digital Marketing, the arm of BrandSource that handles member digital marketing initiatives. "This begins with the website platform, content, and optimization for Google, Bing, Yahoo, and all of the various search engines." Google, for one, has very specific algorithms for ranking sites. It rewards natural and dynamic content with high relevancy to the keyword searched, but it penalizes for things like duplicate content, keyword "stuffing," and other site problems. In addition to Google Business View and SEO/SEM, Baird recommends investigating paid search on Google Adwords, search and banner Ads, mobile apps for your store, email campaigns, YouTube content, and more. BrandSource Digital also harnesses Remarketing, which displays your ads to people who have visited your website or used your mobile app in the past. When those customers leave your website without buying anything, for example, remarketing helps you reconnect with them by showing relevant ads as they browse the web, as they use mobile apps, or as they search on Google. By optimizing your website and leveraging these other digital platforms, you can increase site traffic from 45 to 50 percent within the first 30 to 60 days of implementation, according to Baird. More information on Google Business View can be found at www.google.com/maps/about/ partners/businessview RO E. Michael Allen, BrandSource VP of home furnishings, has been with the organization for 15 years and overseen the growth of the category to one of the largest in the country.

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