Making Home Goods eComm More Efficient

Home fashions are flying off the proverbial endless aisles of the Internet at a strong pace. Digital commerce sales of home and garden products, including home furnishings, reached $42.4 billion in 2022, up almost 25 percent over 2021, according to the Comscore Digital Commerce Measurement, U.S., 2021-2022.

“That’s an impressive growth number given that the category was also growing quickly in 2021 as well, as many consumers furnished home offices and did home improvement projects during the pandemic,” said Ian Essling, senior director, Survey Insights, Comscore.

Capturing eCommerce Opportunities

Online sales growth does not always equal corresponding profit growth, especially if home fashions businesses are working with legacy software systems or managing inventory uploads and other activities with spreadsheets. It’s common for companies to add staff to support e-commerce. The right talent is important. However, automation alleviates many manual touchpoints, streamlines processes, and improves compliance with retailer order fulfillment requirements.

“We determined that online was going to be the major force in the industry, and we revamped our entire warehouse and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to process tens of thousands of drop-ship orders daily,” said Sam Shamie, president, Delta Children, a wholesale manufacturer of cribs, mattresses, playroom sets, rugs, sheets, mattress covers, sofas, plush chairs, gliders, rockers, ottomans and poofs.

Shamie’s comments came from a late 2020 interview for the CGS 2021 Supply Chain Trends and Technology Report. Delta Children began upgrading e-commerce capabilities around 2017 and was prepared for the pandemic’s swell of online orders. “The world is constantly changing and moving at unbelievable speed,” he said. “You have to be flexible; you’ve got to embrace change.”

Doing More Same-Day Fulfillment

If there is a constant in retailing, it is change. Walmart and Target both have prioritized omnichannel services, including store-fulfilled pickups and deliveries of online orders. This fulfillment model is demanding on home fashions businesses, which must maintain accurate inventory and move products rapidly, all while controlling costs. Walmart fulfills over $1 billion/month of store-fulfilled orders. Target’s same-day services, such as Shipt online order delivery from local store inventory, increased 4.3 percent in Q4 2022. Bath and bedding products are eligible for Target Shipt.

Retail digital commerce requirements are moving targets. Penalties for missing the bull’s eye are costly. E-commerce automation is mission critical. For example, CGS eCommerce Connectors link BlueCherry® ERP to ChannelAdvisor (CommerceHub) and Shopify, which communicate data associated with billions of e-commerce transactions. BlueCherry also integrates directly with Amazon, Walmart, Target, Macy’s and other major retailers’ order management platforms.

Want to learn more about how to grow Home Goods sales while maximizing profits? Download the eBook, “3 Steps to Grow Home Market Share: Practical Process Improvements and Solutions.”