How To Start An Online Home Decor Business

With the deep penetration of the Internet, especially after the pandemic, a large number of customers have become technologically savvy. They prefer to search and do a thorough research for the products on the internet that they are interested in. This is also true for the home decor industry.

In fact a recent survey by Statista shows that about 72% customers look up online for furnishing and home decor items and accessories before making a store visit.

Given how much customers rely on the internet for purchasing anything, it makes sense to kick start an online store for your home decor business. Your online store is an opportunity for you to establish your own brand, tell your narrative, share client testimonials, give users tons of product offerings and make it easy for them to make purchases.

Here are 6 steps that can help you in building an e-commerce website for your home decor business.

The first thing that you will have to do is to register a domain. A good domain name is short and easy to remember. It should also be related to your brand or product so that people can find it easily when they search online.

A domain name can cost anywhere between $10 and $100 per year depending on the service provider or the domain registrar

Storeplum helps you build a professional and functional website. Our simple and easy-to-use website builder allows you to choose your color scheme, fonts and add custom sections which are relevant for your business. Get the most out of Storeplum with these tips-

Show your best sellers on the main landing page

Display your best products on your homepage so that visitors don’t have to navigate through the entire website to find them. This helps create a direct path to sales.

Write a crystal clear message which appeals to your audience instantly

Some people do it, some don’t, but writing a clear message can speak volumes about yourself and win the trust of your customers.

Show photos of products in use

Showing how something will work in real life will help people visualize what it will look like when they buy it. Also, try adding lifestyle images to really connect with your audience at an emotional level.

Stick to the theme’s color palette

Consistency is one of the important aspects while building a brand. A soft drink bottle with a red cover can be easily identified as Coca-Cola, even without looking at it’s logo. Its important that you stick to common theme colors. Less is literally more in this case.

Add a lot about yourself, why did you start this businesss, what motivates you, etc

People like to hear good stories. Use it to your advantage. Let your customers know you. Tell them your story on why did you start this company, any challenges that you faced in your journey, etc.

Highlight client reviews and testimonials

"Social proof" is the idea that if other people like something, then we will too — a concept that can be traced back to psychologist Robert Cialdini's book "Influence." Make sure you have a section on your website devoted to reviews and testimonials. Survey has shown that about 85% of buying in the internet is based on customer reviews.

You can customize your Storeplum theme defaults based on your liking. In general, you should be including the following pages for your business-

Contact Us page

Give your users an opportunity to reach you out if they have any questions about products or if they need to track their orders.

Instagram feed integration

Thousands of brands are using Instagram as their primary channel for customer acquisition. Connect your Instagram feed to your main page to add authenticity to the website

Blogs

This is by far the most important page that you should have. Start educating your target audience from day one with your blogs. Post relevant content like How to renovate your study room for less than $100 or 2022 home interior trends. With blogs, your goal should be to become industry leader when it comes to home decor. Your target audience should be reading/knowing new information from you

Privacy Policy

This gives an idea to your website visitors about data privacy.

Terms and conditions

We recommend to get terms and conditions page drafted from a legal counsel. This will protect you in case of any law suits and your visitors will also have an idea on general terms of services while dealing with your business

If you’re already familiar with the benefits of having a blog for your online business, it may be time to take the next step and create a content plan. A strong content library with home decor tips and trends can draw a lot of organic traffic to your website. Key points to keep in mind while starting with blogs

• Post regularly
• Find out relevant topics your target audience may be interested in. Use Google trends or Google keyword planner for this

Set up your business accounts on major social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc. Keep an eye on your competition, see what they are posting. You can make some rough guesses from here.

Keep in mind that each social media platform has a different type of audience. Keep your content relevant accordingly.

Apart from this, start nurturing a quality email list. Almost 58% of repeat customers buy again because they saw a new product or a promotion in their email. Storeplum’s Infinity allows you to capture emails and schedule email newsletters directly from the dashboard.

Finally, most of your early users are going to visit your website through word of mouth. If done right, word of mouth can do wonders to kick off your business.

Now that everything is setup, it’s time to monitor your user traffic, where they come from, your average order value (AOV), cart abandonment rate and other metrics which are relevant to your online business. Storeplum will not only show the important metrics for your business but will also help you with recommendations for improving them.