Looking ahead to 2025...
December 2024
Wow. What a year it’s been — 2024. After a tough few years: pandemic lock downs, demand surges, supply shocks, inflation, excess inventory, interest rates… this year was just as challenging with sticky inflation, higher for longer interest rates — had an impact on our ability to grow or maintain sales.
But guess what? We made it through. What truly stands out is the resilience and adaptability that everyone has shown, with some of our customers navigating eloquently like Dovetail Furniture and Solo Rugs, and others simply surviving to fight another day.
Unfortunately the future still has its uncertainties with tariffs becoming the new headline. We’re all hoping that 2025 is the turning point for the category, and we believe it will be.
With the U.S. Election and the intensity of Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, it's an opportune time to pause, reflect, and recalibrate. The Holidays offer a unique moment to assess the year’s wins and losses and set the stage for a stronger 2025. The start of a new year isn’t just a fresh calendar — it’s a chance to refine your focus and build on lessons learned.
Let’s dedicate time today to dive into what you can do to get positioned for the new year 🍾
Building a Strong Ecommerce Presence: success in ecommerce, especially on platforms like Wayfair, relies on mastering key fundamentals. To thrive, suppliers must:
Invest in their ecommerce team — having dedicated full-time staff focused on building and managing listings is critical to success on channel.
Competitive Pricing: Ensure pricing is attractive and in line with market expectations, factoring in Wayfair’s discounting practices and promotions.
Accurate & Detailed Product info: Provide high-quality images, dimensions, materials, and assembly instructions to reduce returns and build customer trust.
Logistics: Meet strict drop-ship and delivery timelines; Wayfair rewards vendors with reliable and fast shipping capabilities.
Inventory: Maintain accurate stock levels to avoid out-of-stock penalties and improve rankings in Wayfair’s algorithms.
Strong vendor scorecards: Consistently meet or exceed channel performance benchmarks
Participation in promos: Engage in your channel(s) major promotional events (e.g., New Years Sales, category sales, Black Friday in July, etc. ) to boost visibility and sales.
Customer reviews: Encourage positive reviews by delivering high-quality products and addressing issues promptly; reviews heavily influence product rankings.
Get Early Access to Our New Product! If you’re interested in learning more about the best publishing software ever built for furniture & home brands, book some time with me here and we’ll go through it together.
The ticker: relevant reads 🔥🔥🔥
More tariffs may be coming. Is the home industry ready? — Business of Home
Future-Proofing Furniture Retail: Smart Tools for Growth — Furniture Today
November furniture store sales rise .7% from November 2023 — Home News Now
Tarriff discussions loom large at Interwoven — Home News Now
Perigold hastens brick-mortar plans with debut in Texas — Home Accents Today
Happy holidays? Retailers hope aggressive sales bring cheer — Furniture Today
Wayfair is capturing share during home category ‘malaise’ — Furniture Today
Check out this month’s top-performing listing 🌟
Want to create standout listings like this? Check out our Content Guidebook for more.
🥳🥳🥳 Vegas Market in January: we will be attending Vegas Market in January 2025, showcasing our new end-to-end publishing tool. If you’d like to see it, let us know and we can set up time to demo it in-person. This product is the culmination of our team's hard efforts in 2024 and we’re extremely excited to show it to the furniture category.
“We believe that this is a game changing tool and will have a major impact on ecomm team workflows and operations”
If you like what you see, join the recliner email club to stay up to date with this kind of stuff. See you soon & Happy New Year!
Sam Vlessing
CEO, CommerceBear