The Rise of E-Commerce in the Furniture Industry Brick and Mortar Store E-Commerce Sales as a Percent of Total Sales
September 23,
2016 by Jane Chero in General 
This is the second factoid in a series of four factoids showing the rise of E-Commerce in the Furniture Industry. With the sophistication of the internet has come the booming growth of e-commerce. The combined furniture and home furnishings industry has been one of the big recipients of this growth second only to the clothing/footwear industry. It is estimated that 2015 internet sales of furniture alone now totals an estimated $14 billion or 15 percent of furniture industry sales.
Retail sales of furniture and home furnishings products are sold through three avenues – brick and mortar stores, internet shopping (e-commerce) and finally mail order and other miscellaneous non-store retailing. In the first instance - brick and mortar stores -consumers can physically visit the store or they can often visit the store’s website and make an online purchase. Many of these retailers offer expanded product offerings on their websites not available in stores. While some large brick and mortar merchants have been successful in online retailing of furniture and home furnishings products, furniture and home furnishings stores as a whole have been much less successful with online attempts. These websites serve as much to draw the consumer into the store as to generate online sales. And while e-commerce sales among furniture and home furnishings stores almost doubled from $330 million to $651 million 2004 to 2014, this only increased internet sales to less than one percent of furniture stores volume in 2014.
Comparing furniture and home furnishings stores to other retail brick and mortar companies, furniture and home furnishings stores lag behind in percent of e-commerce sales to total sales, though none are exceeding three percent of sales via e-commerce.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, E-Commerce 2014 Report