Wayfair, Made.com, & European Online Furniture
Former Managing Director at Made.com
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Wayfair, Made.com, & European Online Furniture(June 7, 2022)
Damien Poelhekke
Former Managing Director at Made.com
Damien is the former Managing Director at Made.com, the UK-listed online furniture retailer that competes with Wayfair in UK & EMEA. Damien spent nearly 7 years at Made where he had full P&L responsibility for Europe including Germany and the Nordics.
Interview Transcript
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And they're taking more inventory risk now. I think the inventory's pretty much trebled since 2020-2021 because they want to reduce the lead time, which means they want to take more stock to offer better service. What drives conversion for online furniture?
Many factors. Lead-time is critical, I would say less so now than at the time, but we saw that having a showroom or physical awareness also drove conversion in the cities where we also had conversion. Obviously, you would feel less comfortable purchasing a sofa without having tested it, seen it, or touched it. Those were key growth drivers for Made, and now it's more common; the market is more mature. Also, online penetration was a key growth driver. In the end, as with any online brand, it's about trustworthiness, credibility, authority, presentation, and branding that must be spot on.
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You said lead time first; is that number one?
Yes, lead time is one of the number ones for me. People are more willing to wait for more bulky items and a sofa you can wait two or three months and you’re happy to do so. But the smaller items, people just don't buy them if they have to wait three or four months. They're used to getting them earlier. That was critical, and we saw that directly and also in our sales in our conversion. Across all categories with good lead times, conversion was higher than other times with lower lead times.
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