According to International Trade Administration (ITA), The Philippines’ e-commerce market sales attained $17 Billion in 2021. With over 73 Million Filipino online active users today, the country’s market sale is anticipated to reach $24 billion by 2025. It is apparent that there has been significant growth in e-commerce and online shopping. This could have been an advantage for you, who is an aspiring business owner passionate about curating chairs, tables, beds, and more to start your own online furniture shop.

Starting a furniture business is no easy feat, but with a little bit of research and hard work, it can be done. In this blog post, we’ll take you through 6 steps to starting your own furniture business.

Step 1: Research the furniture industry and market trends.

If you want to start a business in a particular industry, the very first important thing to ensure is you must be knowledgeable about it. It is required that you know essential information about the business you are going to start, thus research should be done.

By doing market research you will know if the business you want to start is feasible and profitable. It will also help you craft your business plan as data and statistics will help you determine factors to include in your plan. Likewise, you can use the information you gathered in making smart choices for your marketing strategies, logistics, product packaging, and online promotions.

In the Philippines, Statista projected that the furniture market in the country would reach US$4667.00 million in 2025 after expanding by 15.55% between 2022 and 2025. From this data, you can gain confidence that your furniture business is worth the risks.

Step 2: Create your business plan.

After knowing the details about the kind of market you will venture into, you have to create a business plan. A business plan will help you get into the details of your business. Here, you will write the information about your business, strategies, and goals. It will assist you in organizing the process of starting your online furniture store, and help you in monitoring your success. Similarly, you can also use your business plan in looking for investors to help you with your working capital.

Your business plan must include a market analysis, competitive analysis, customer segmentation, marketing, logistics and operations plans, cash flow projection, and an overall path to long-term success.

You must note that whether you’re a small or big enterprise if you fail to make a business plan you are more likely planning to fail.

Step 3: Look for suppliers for your furniture products.

When you have identified all the important factors for your furniture business, you must look and choose a reliable furniture supplier. You have the choice to import products from other countries or locally. It is advisable to get supplies from a single vendor who offers you high-quality products at a reasonable price. You can buy a large-scale supply and get big discounts.

In the Philippines, you can get local supplies from Mandaue City also known as the nation’s furniture capital who is accounted for 75% of furniture exports.

Step 4: Find the most convenient and seller-friendly online platforms to set up your online store.

Subsequently, when you’re done preparing everything you need, you must now look for an e-commerce platform that can help you set up your online furniture shop. There may be a lot of online platforms to choose from. However, you must be careful in choosing so your efforts would not be wasted.

You must also check if it has a feature that helps you track customers’ insights because this could help you improve your product and services as the operations continue to flourish. Likewise, check if their logistics partner and payment gateway are efficient and reliable.

You must choose a platform that is easy to navigate, has professional features, something that does not let sellers pay for access more than what they earn, and a site where they prioritize helping start-ups succeed in their business journey.

Step 5: Prepare advertising materials for your products.

Of course, setting up an online furniture shop account is not enough, you have to create publication materials that you will upload there. You have to take high-quality images that will highlight your product’s best features. 

People online today are quite skeptical about what they see online because of the rampant online scams. Having these will help your online store build trust as pictures equate as proof that you are an authentic online shop.

You can hire a designer to create these online materials for you, to assure you of the materials’ quality and effectiveness.

Step 6: Promote your online furniture shop.

The purpose of advertising materials is for you to promote your business online which would help you grow your brand and expand your reach to potential customers. In promoting your business, you must ensure that your advertisements align with the positioning of your company.

To make effective promotional content for your online furniture shop, you must first make your relevance to your target audience, create something that shows the distinction of your brand from your competitors, and highlight your product feature and usage where you can also increase your customer’s knowledge and your ad should be truthful and competitive enough to attract customers.

Creating your Online Furniture Shop

In creating your online furniture shop, you have to be at the right e-commerce platform, so you can exceptionally exhibit your products and services.

With that, Maynakem will help you create your online store for FREE that will showcase your products, increase traffic and boost sales with the best-in-class design. Create your shop now.