Best practices for furniture and home decor stores

A sofa or a dining table is an expensive, considered purchase that the customer will live with for years. It is bulky to return, and the shopper has to imagine it in a room they know well. Dynamic Yield reports a 1.29% conversion rate for home and furniture, compared with 5.32% for beauty and personal care. A low rate is normal here, so measure progress against your own history.

Baymard found that 42% of users try to judge a product's size from its images, and that without a frame of reference they draw the wrong conclusions and discard relevant products. A sofa on a white background could be a two-seater or a four-seater.

Show every product in a room with familiar objects around it, such as a person, a door, a plant or a book. For small decor, show it in a hand or on a table. Baymard's own advice is that every product needs at least one image that shows its scale.

List width, depth and height, plus the measurements that matter for the specific product. Seat height and seat depth for chairs and sofas, the height under a table top, the opening of a lampshade, the inside of a drawer. Add a simple drawing with the measurements marked, kept separate from the main image.

For large items, also give the packaging dimensions and weight. Shoppers need them to know whether the box will get through the door and up the stairs.

Wood type, fabric, finish and colour decide whether a piece fits the shopper's home. Show close-ups that make texture visible, name the materials precisely (“solid oak, oiled” rather than “wood”) and describe how they age and how to care for them.

For upholstery and rugs, offer fabric samples or swatches. A small sample sent by post can settle the colour question that no screen fully answers.

A slow camera move around a product in a room shows its shape, depth and size more convincingly than a single angle. Video also shows mechanisms, such as a sofa bed unfolding, an extendable table or a drawer's soft close. Use it as a supplement to the image set, placed after the main image.

Tell the shopper, on the product page, how long delivery takes, whether it comes to the door or into the room of choice, whether old furniture can be taken away, and whether assembly is needed and how long it takes. Large items often have separate delivery prices, so show them before checkout.

Since 13 December 2024, the EU's General Product Safety Regulation requires online offers to show the manufacturer's name and contact details, information that identifies the product, including a picture, and any warnings or safety information. For furniture this can include wall-anchoring instructions for tall units and weight limits for shelves. Put it on the product page, not only in the box.