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Table of Contents
Background………………………………………. 3
Research Objectives……………………………. 4
Research Methodology………………………... 5
Audience Description…………………………... 6
Key Findings………………………………………. 7
Limitations…………………………………………. 10
Recommendations…………………………….... 11
Summary…………………………………………... 13
References………………………………………... 14
Appendices...………………………………...…... 15
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Background:
Opened in 1987, City Schemes is a contemporary furniture store located in Somerville that
focuses on value. City Schemes features many modern brands such as Adesso, BDI, Calligaris, Chandra,
Eurostyle. The store sells office space furniture, dining room furniture, bedroom furniture and living
room furniture as well as light fixtures, rugs and mirrors. City Schemes’ furniture tends to last long
(10-15 years), so their products are considered to be smart investments.
Some of City Schemes’ competitors include Wayfair, Roche Bobois, NOVA Interior, Montage, Alto
Decor, Circe Furniture, West Elm, Lekker Home and Design Within Reach. Wayfair is an exclusively
online furniture store that carries brands such as Rachel Ray, Kohler and DaVinci. Roche Bobois, located
in Boston, features elegant modern French furnishings. NOVA Interiors, located in the greater Boston
area, positions itself as the store that sells contemporary cutting edge furniture that won't cost a
fortune.
City Schemes’ prices are higher than Bob’s Discount Furniture Store (price range for a sofa:
$399 - $899) but are not in the expensive range of Roche-Bobois (price range for a sofa: $1,200 -
$11,200).City Schemes carries high-quality furniture and is pushing to emphasize the quality of their
products. The company differentiates itself by giving its customers competitive prices for high quality
of furniture.
City Schemes offers a “white glove” service, where employees set up the furniture in the
customer’s home as opposed to dropping it off at the door. This is unique to City Schemes as Wayfair
drops the furniture off at the customer’s door.
City Schemes is considering integrating an e-commerce strategy to supplement its large 3,000
square foot showroom. City Schemes’ showroom is one of the largest contemporary showrooms in New
England.
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Research Objectives:
City Schemes has encountered the following challenges:
■ City Schemes is worried that their current consumers won’t respond well to a transition to an e-
commerce strategy
■ City Schemes wants to focus on a few key furniture brands instead of including all 50
■ The company is concerned that they will not be able to maintain their consumer base and sales
revenue if they reduce their large showroom, but wonders if the large showroom is worth the
investment.
In order to find a solution to these challenges, the Account Planners developed a research plan
to:
■ Research how competitors run their e-commerce business (Roche-Bobois, Wayfare, All Modernist
etc)
■ Research how clients would respond to:
o Reducing the size of City Schemes’ large showroom
o Focusing on a few key furniture brands as opposed to many different brands
o Transitioning to an E-Commerce Strategy
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Research Methodology:
Qualitative Research
■ The Account Planner conducted three in-person interviews.
■ One interview was conducted over the phone with a 59-year-old stay at home mother of
two and resident of New York and was held November 20th 2015.
■ One interview was conducted over the phone with a 64-year-old copy machine salesman
father of two and resident of New York and was held November 20th, 2015.
■ One interview was conducted over the phone with a 56-year-old Office Administrator at
Boston Scientific, mother of two, and resident of Boston and was held November 19th,
2015.
■ 8 questions were asked to analyze consumer furniture shopping behavior as well as
attitudes towards shopping for furniture online.
Quantitative Research
■ Survey
■ The survey was distributed over mailchimp to the City Schemes client list.
■ The survey was structured to develop key insights about the benefits of shopping online
over in-store, finding out which brands consumers prefer and examine the benefits of a
large showroom.
■ The survey was created on Qualtrics, distributed via mailchimp and had 64 respondents.
■ The respondents were offered a 20% discount off of City Schemes’ new products as an
incentive to take the survey.
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Target Audience Description:
■ The target audience is not focused on age, rather than income and lifestyle. Most of their
customers are between the stages of “graduating from IKEA” (late adulthood, older than 20) to
wanting to invest in nice lasting furniture for starting a family. City Schemes’ clients tend to
use City Schemes’ products to supplement the rest of their high-end designer furniture.
■ Almost all of City Schemes’ clients are from the Boston to greater Boston area from
places such as, North and South Boston, Cambridge, Newton, Lexington, etc. and
extend out to places such as Providence, RI.
■ Customers range anywhere from 28-50+ years old but all have a household income of
around about $50,000+ , who are used to shopping at higher-end boutiques.
■ A portion of City Schemes’ customers are ‘the bargain hunting middle class’. These
customers consist of people with a lower household income than most of City Scheme’s
clients. However, they are drawn to nice furniture and are willing to buy high quality
furniture for the lowest price they can find it at.
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Key Findings:
1. Most individuals prefer to shop for style and appearance over brand names, but use established
brands as benchmarks to compare them to the quality of other lesser-known furniture brands.
■ 27% of survey respondents have never heard of any of the brands offered.
■ In the survey, no one rated brand names as an extremely important factor when
purchasing furniture. Price, texture and feel of the product, and durability were rated
more influential in their purchasing decisions.
■ All interviewees had difficulty naming specific brands and stated that they all have a
“mish-mosh” of different brands in their homes.
■ One interviewee stated: “I don’t know many brands very well but I tend to look at
reputable brands and see what materials the product is made of, and where it was made.
Then use that brand as my benchmark as I look for furniture in similar styles but for lower
prices.”
2. Most individuals like going to showrooms because it allows them to test out the furniture before
they buy it.
■ 17 out of 64 survey respondents rated “the ability to see the actual measurements of the
products” as the most important factors when shopping in-store (Please see question 4in
appendix B).
■ Many consumers value the ability to evaluate the furniture’s comfort, actual color and
dimensions.
■ One interviewee stated that “you can examine the pieces more closely, you just get more
of an idea of what the pieces look like than when you look online”
3. Showrooms help consumers visualize how furniture would fit (figuratively and literally) in their
home.
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■ An interviewee stated: “Being in a showroom helps me think more creatively about a
space. So if I see a piece of furniture I really like, I like seeing what the store has paired
with it (accessories, colors, fabrics and other large furniture items) to help my own
decision making about how the piece would fit into my space and style.”
■ Consumers tend to prefer seeing the furniture in store because descriptions of color and
textures are a matter of personal preference and it’s difficult to trust the store’s (or
another person’s) subjective descriptions.
■ According to the majority of survey respondents, ‘the ability to feel the textures of the
products’ (rated the most important), ‘the ability to see the color of the products in person’
(rated the second most important) and ‘the ability to feel the textures of the
products’ (rated the third most important) are considered to be more important than ‘the
ability to ask the sales representative for help’ (Please see question 4 in appendix B).
4. While individuals shop online for furniture, there are a few specific furniture pieces they prefer
to buy in-store.
■ 26 out of 55 respondents rated “the ability to feel the textures of the products” as the
second most important factor when shopping in-store (Please see question 4 in appendix
B).
■ One interviewee stated that she never buys furniture online without examining it in
person. “One time I was interested in a dining room set I found online and I had to fly
down to Florida to look at it. I wouldn't buy it without looking at it first. Then I found a
store around here that was a distributor and then I was able to order it. I research my
furniture before I buy it.”
■ Another interviewee stated: “I want to be able to look at everything online but I probably
wouldn’t buy a couch or chair - or anything I would have to sit in or ‘experience’ for a long
time. I would look at and buy plenty of accessories, stools, or tables online because all I
really care about in these objects are the dimensions and style of them. I would be more
inclined to buy chairs or couches online if I could get a significantly better value than
what it usually sells for in stores”
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5. Most individuals like showrooms because it allows customers the opportunity to browse for
other options that could suit their homes.
■ One respondent answered that: “There are hundreds of different styles of
couches or tables or chairs and that’s what I like when I go to stores. It gives me
a large opportunity to look at different styles.”
■ Another interviewee stated that after looking for specific furniture, he “looks around
the showroom because there might be something else that could work”
■ Another interviewee compares showroom items to similar items around it, incase “other
items might work better” or she “hasn’t considered them.”
6. It is important for consumers to have the ability to easily compare furniture available from a
store to the same or similar items from other stores, in a quick and easy to understand format.
■ Almost half of survey respondents rated the ability to search for a specific item as the
most important factor when shopping online (Please see question 5 in appendix B).
■ Only 5 respondents rated the ability to shop from home as the most important factor
when shopping online. Therefore, the ability to compare items is of more value to the
consumer than the convenience of shopping from home (Please see question 5 in
appendix B).
■ One interviewee stated: “It can sometimes be confusing trying to compare furniture items
in a showroom where as online it’s easier for me to see the prices, shipping cost and
materials listed side by side.
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Limitations:
· The Account Planners were unable to interview people from the City Schemes’ client list
o Due to the limitations on time, we were unable to interview City Schemes’ clients to inquire about
supplementing City Schemes’ showroom with an e-commerce strategy.
o We chose to focus on the members of the target audience we were able to contact, specifically older
established adults who had experience shopping both online and in store for furniture.
· The Account Planners could only distribute the surveys to City Schemes’ email list
o The target audience is above the age-range of the Account Planners, so we were unable to distribute
the survey to non-City Schemes clients (whether it be through Facebook, email, Twitter etc).
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Recommendations:
■ Focus on cutting down types of furniture such as, office space furniture available in the showroom.
o The majority of survey respondents shop for living room furniture the most. Respondents also shop for
dining room and bedroom furniture more than office space furniture, which they “never” shop for the most
(please see question 2 in appendix B). It would be more effective to have a wider variety of style options
for the room-specific furniture that customers shop for the most (such as chairs and couches), and a
smaller variety of furniture options. With regards to office space furniture (which is shopped for the least),
City Schemes should focus more on the most popular furniture styles than on the amount of furniture
options offered or consider making all of the office furniture available for online purchase only.
■ Focus on a few key brands that customers value to provide a variety of furniture items of, while
making sure to offer a healthy variety of other styles of select in-store furniture items.
o The survey has shown that 48% of survey respondents prefer Addesso, 42% prefer Calligaris, 40%
prefer Natuzzi, 28% prefer Eurostyle, 23% prefer Gus (the most popular brands among survey
respondents) and 27% of the respondents have no brand preference (Please see question 3 in appendix
B).
o The most well-known brands (Addesso, Calligaris, Natuzzi, etc.) serve as a “benchmark” among City
Schemes’ consumers to gain an understanding of City Schemes’ quality and furniture standards. They
may then broaden their scope of interest to the showroom’s lesser known but similar brands.
o Key insights have shown that most consumers value style and looks over brand, so offering 50+ brands
and spending copious amounts of money to get the most brands is unnecessary. Offering a variety of
modern styles from a handful of brands in key furniture items may be more useful.
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■ If City Schemes incorporates an e-commerce strategy to supplement the showroom, they should
provide and online experience that allows consumers to experiment with colors, materials and
dimensions within a digital-image space.
o Most consumers shopping for furniture prefer to have a specific item in mind. These consumers use the
store’s online shopping website to scout out exactly what they want before heading to purchase it in the
store. Consumers experiment with different variations of the furniture online to fit their homes.
o Displaying pictures of an average height model interacting with each specific furniture item in the online
store would help customers better visualise the dimensions. It would also allow the customer to better
imagine using the item themselves. Another option would be to simply list the dimensions of each
furniture item in its online description.
o Allowing consumers to order swatches or sample cards of colors and textures of specific items online
would reduce the amount of dissatisfaction customer feels by not being able to interact with these items in
person.
o 38% of City Scheme’s survey respondents live more than ten miles away from City Schemes.
Therefore, the more useful the online shopping experience is, the more the clients would appreciate and
benefit from these changes to City Schemes’ online website and would in turn be more inclined to buy
furniture from City Schemes (Please see question 6 in appendix B).
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Summary:
City Schemes has been contemplating whether or not to add an e-commerce strategy to
supplement their 3,000 square foot showroom. City Schemes also inquired whether it would be preferable
to focus on a few key furniture brands or to feature many brands.
Much of the target audience values the style and look of the furniture over the brand name. Many
consumers own a variety of brands or use reliable brands as a benchmark to compare the lesser-known
brands to. By focusing on a few key brands, it would prevent City Schemes from spending copious
amounts of money to get the most brands. City Scheme’s audience tends to prefer a variety of styles from
a handful of brands. The store should also focus more on incorporating different styles than the amount of
furniture options, especially for room-specific furniture (ie office space) that consumers rarely shop for at
City Schemes.
Furniture shoppers prefer to buy select items in store (ie chairs, couches) to examine the quality,
texture, and color of the product. However, many consumers use online stores to search for a specific
item to be prepared for when they shop in-store. Consumers enjoy experimenting with the furniture’s
colors, dimensions and materials online before examining it in-store, which can make shopping easier
and more efficient. If City Schemes were to incorporate an e-commerce strategy, they should provide an
online experience that allows consumers to experiment with colors, materials and dimensions within a
digital-image space.
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References:
Primary Research
■ Three in-depth interviews with adults who have had experience shopping online and offline for
furniture.
■ One survey with 64 total respondents.
Secondary Research
■ City Schemes: Marketing Plan, given to the Account Planners by Jonathan Decosta.
■ "Lekker Home : Design for Living." Lekker Home : Design for Living. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
■ "NovaInteriors." Home Page-NOVA Interiors Boston Contemporary Furniture Store NOVA
Interiors. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
■ "Roche Bobois Paris - Interior Design & Contemporary Furniture." Roche Bobois Paris - Interior
Design & Contemporary Furniture. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
■ "The Best in Authentic Modern Design." Design Within Reach. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
■ "Wayfair.com - Online Home Store for Furniture, Decor, Outdoors & More | Wayfair." Wayfair.com
- Online Home Store for Furniture, Decor, Outdoors & More | Wayfair. Web. 30 Nov. 2015.
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Appendix A: Survey Questionnaire
Q1.
Within the last two years, how often have you shopped for furniture in a store?
■ Rarely, 1-2 times
■ Sometimes, 3-4 times
■ Often, 5 or more times
Q2. When shopping at City Schemes which room specific items do you most often shop
for?
Q4. When you shop for furniture in a store, how much do the following factors influence
your purchasing decision?
Always Usually Sometimes Never
Bedroom
Dining
Room
Living
Room
Office
Space
Not
all
Slightly Moderately Very
much
Extremely
Brand name
Texture and
feel of the
product
Price
Durability
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Q5. Which of the following brands do you prefer? (Check all that apply)
■ Adesso
■ BDI
■ Calligaris
■ Chandra
■ Eurostyle
■ Gus
■ Innovation
■ Natuzzi
■ Younger
■ Zuo
■ I haven't heard of any of these brands
Q6. Please rate the importance of the following factors when shopping in-store on a
scale of 1-4. Please drag and place the most important item at the top and place the
others accordingly, with 4 being the least important.
■ The ability to feel the textures of the products
■ The ability to see the actual measurements of the items
■ The ability to see the color of the products in person
■ The ability to ask the sales representative for help
Q7. Please rate the importance of the following factors when shopping online on a scale
of 1-4. Please drag and place the most important item at the top and place the others
accordingly, with 4 being the least important.
■ The ability to search for specific items
■ The ability to shop from home
■ The ability to compare prices to those of other retailers
■ The ability to share product information by sending a website link to family members and friends
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Q8.
Which of the following stores have you bought furniture from? (Check all that apply)
■ Wayfair
■ Roche Bobois
■ City Schemes
■ NOVA Interiors
■ Montage
■ Alto Decor
■ Circe Furniture
■ West Elm
■ Lekker Home
■ Neo Interiors
■ Italian Interiors
■ Room & Board
■ Design Within Reach
■ BoConcept
Q9. How far away do you live from City Schemes' Somerville location (22 Kent Street,
Somerville MA)?
■ Less than a mile away
■ One to five miles away
■ Five to ten miles away
■ More than ten miles away
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Appendix B: Survey Questionnaire
Key Charts and Graphs
Question 2: When shopping at City Schemes which room specific items do you most often shop
for
#
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Question 4: When you shop for furniture in a store, how much do the following factors influence
your purchasing decision?
#
Question 5: Please rate the importance of the following factors when shopping in-stores
(answer 1 being the most important)
KEY: Blue: 1 (Most important) Red: 2,
Green: 3 Purple: 4 (Least important)
#
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Question 7: Please rate the importance of the following factors when shopping online (answer 1
being the most important)
KEY: Blue: 1 (Most important) Red: 2,
Green: 3 Purple: 4 (Least important)
#
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Appendix C: Interview Questions
Interview Questions
i. What factors influence you the most when shopping for furniture and why?
ii. When you shop for furniture in-store, how do you approach the show-room?
iii. What’s you favorite furniture brand and why?
iv. What do you like most about shopping for furniture in-store?
v. What do you like least about shopping for furniture in-store
vi. What do you like about shopping online for furniture?
vii. What are some of the cons to shopping for furniture online?
viii. What has been your favorite experience while shopping online and why?
ix. What are your opinions on City Schemes incorporating an e-commerce strategy
(developing an online survey) ?
Demographic Profile
Three interviewees included:
■ One 59-year-old stay at home mother of two and resident of New York.
■ One 64-year-old copy machine salesman and father of two, resident of New York.
■ One 56-year-old Office Administrator at Boston Scientific mother of two and resident of Boston.
■ Three out of three interviewees have experience shopping for furniture online.
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