As a business owner working in the furniture industry, you’ll know first-hand the part furniture plays in shaping and making a home.
While furniture is often considered a necessity (most of us would prefer not to sleep on the floor!), it also brings personality and character to a space. But as a furniture retailer, you’ll also know that buying furniture upfront can be an expensive purchase.
If you’re struggling to tackle cart abandonment rate, and want to get a step ahead of your competitors, it may be time to offer furniture store financing to your customers.
Here, we’ll explore how to increase furniture sales through point-of-sale finance, and the benefits of customer finance as a furniture seller.
The pros and cons of offering financing for furniture purchases
There are several pros and cons to offering financing to your customers, including:
Pros
- Cost: Allowing your customers to spread the cost of their furniture into repayments can help make their purchase more affordable, as they won’t need to pay for it in full upfront. By spreading the cost, your customers may be more inclined to buy.
- Customer relationships: Offering customer finance can establish a level of trust with your customers, which can strengthen your business-customer relationships.
- Increased cash flow: Customer finance can improve cash flow as you’ll have a stream of instalment payments coming in regularly over time, which can give your business financial stability.
- Revenue: Allowing your customers to spread the cost of their purchases can encourage them to convert and make larger purchases they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford upfront, which can increase your revenue.
Cons
- Missed payments: With POS finance, there is the possibility that a customer may miss their repayment. If they do, you’ll have to spend time chasing them or pay a collection agency to chase them for you.
- Keeping records: Keeping records of customers on finance can feel time-consuming and complicated. That’s why choosing the right financing provider to take care of the hard work for you and keep things running smoothly is so important.
How offering financing for furniture could increase your sales and customer loyalty
If you’re looking for ways to increase your furniture sales and improve your customer loyalty, customer finance may be the solution.
By offering furniture store financing, you’re granting trust between you and your customers by allowing them to spread the cost of their furniture purchase into affordable repayments.
This can help you to provide a service that is memorable to your customers, which may encourage them to purchase from you again in the future, and recommend you to their friends and family too.
Customer finance also allows your customer to purchase items they may have initially thought were unaffordable to them and out of reach.
Allowing your customers to pay for their new furniture over time can be a key motivator in encouraging them to purchase.
This can therefore increase not only sales, but the value of sales, as customers may be more likely to spend more than they planned or choose a higher-value item if they can spread the cost.
The benefits of offering furniture financing for your business and customers
There are several benefits to offering furniture store financing, for both your business and your customers, including:
- Attract new customers: By offering POS finance, you’re likely to stand out against your competitors who don’t offer flexible payment options. Customers are likely to choose you over other furniture retailers.
- Customer satisfaction: Customers who wouldn’t be able to afford your furniture upfront may be able to afford them with customer finance – which can increase your customer appeal. Customer financing also encourages interaction between your business and your customers, which can improve customer retention and loyalty.
- Easy to set up: By partnering with an experienced POS company like Duologi, you can seamlessly integrate point-of-sale finance into your business. Finance companies will do the hard work for you to ensure everything runs smoothly, for both your company and your customers.
- Increased customer loyalty: As a business, you’ll want to offer a memorable service to your customers that develops loyalty and trust. Offering furniture store financing can encourage customers to return to your business and refer your services to their network.
- Improved business image: Customers often favour brands they feel are well-established and trustworthy. By offering customer finance, you’ll give your customers a positive impression of your business. In turn, you’re likely to benefit from business growth, increased conversion rate and customer retention.
How to implement financing options in your store
Ready to offer furniture store financing? Implementing financing options at the checkout should feel straightforward – here’s how to get started.
- Choose a finance lending provider: You’ll need to decide on the finance lending provider that best suits both your business’ goals and the needs of your customers. Make sure the provider understands the values of your business and exactly what you’re looking for. New to finance? You’ll want your provider to explain to you exactly how their customer finance works and what they can offer.
- Choose the right finance model for your business: There are several types of POS finance, so you’ll need to decide on the right type for your business and customers. Will you offer 0% finance, or interest-bearing? How long will your customers have to pay back what they owe? Often, the bigger the purchase the longer the repayment time, to help make expensive items like furniture feel more affordable.
- Add customer finance to the checkout page: Customer finance should feel straightforward and easy for your customers. Any registration forms that need to be completed should all happen on the same page, and only take a few minutes to complete, to keep the process as quick and simple as possible. If you’re planning to offer checkout finance in-store, make sure your cashiers understand the process completely so they can explain how it works to customers who enquire.
- Inform your customers of your new financing options: Your customers won’t see the benefits of your financing options if they don’t know they exist! As well as displaying these options at the checkout, make sure your customers know about their payment options through your mailing list. Those customers that may have previously abandoned their items at the checkout may go back to purchase now they know they can spread the cost over time.
Providing flexible payment options for your customers with Duologi
Looking to offer furniture store financing? We know a thing or two about POS finance and we’d love to show you how it’s done.
The boost that POS finance can give your business is unbeatable, and we’d love to show you just how valuable it can be – that’s why we offer demos of our services.
Customer financing needs to be easy and intuitive, which is why we developed an app to keep things straightforward. Even better? We can get your customer finance up and running in just a few days.
Book a consultation to find out more
Looking for a retail finance provider you can rely on? We’d like to think we’re a good choice. Contact us today to offer furniture store financing and watch your business grow.