Furniture and home furnishings (Amazon’s growth: 15.7% versus total ecommerce: 10.3%). After big pandemic gains, growth in this vertical will slow in 2022. Yet, while supply chain issues and growing logistics costs have hurt competitors like Wayfair, Amazon’s gains are outperforming the market in this category.

Further, about one-third of respondents who had not yet purchased private label accessories, electronics, and footwear were open to doing so; for home furnishings, the figure was almost 46%. This signals consumers’ willingness to discover store-owned brands in a broader range of categories.

Parachute recently began selling furniture such as bed frames and nightstands. It also embarked on an executive hiring spree, adding its first chief financial officer, chief merchandising officer, and chief commercial officer. The trend line: The two retailers’ efforts come at a time when digitally native brands’ D2C ecommerce sales are decelerating.

For some categories, such as makeup, apparel, and furniture, they might also leverage technology such as augmented reality to help shoppers ensure they want the product they’re planning to purchase.

That said, nesting categories, such as furniture and furnishings, are also up. Sales in the category were up 3.8% YoY and 25.7% compared to 2019, per the SpendingPulse, which suggests shoppers continue to invest in their homes. Why it matters: Regardless of inflation, people will continue to need to spend on food and fuel.

Furniture sales increased 7.2%. Vehicles and auto parts rose 5.7%. Spending at restaurants and bars fell about 1%, which is likely the result of the omicron variant keeping more people at home. Inflation’s impact: Inflation played a role in the spending totals as prices rose 0.6% in January.

Merchants in categories such as furniture and home goods are in a prime position to benefit—if they can effectively navigate the supply chain by taking a tack like Lowe’s and ensuring consumers have options if an individual item is out of stock.

As early pandemic demand for home furnishings wanes, Wayfair is struggling to maintain traffic levels, showing double-digit declines over both 1-year and 2-year time horizons. While many department stores saw rebounding interest in 2021, Kohl’s saw its traffic slip yet again. Other holiday winners included Away, On Running, and Shein.

Visualization of the product in use: Macy’s stores use VR goggles to test the furniture designs in-store. Furniture sales increased 60% at three pilot stores. Returns dropped below 2%. Vince Cacace, founder and CEO of Vertebrae, noted that AR performs best with high volume, higher consideration products, which require deliberation before purchase.

From product-focused creative to augmented reality tools and a proprietary delivery service, furniture seller Article is dedicated to great customer experience every step of the way. Watch Industry Voices with Duncan Blair, vice president of marketing at Article, to learn how its white-glove strategy has introduced consumers to online furniture shopping over the past year.

Shopping for furniture can be overwhelming whether online or in-store. It’s something the co-founders of Burrow found out firsthand years ago when they were looking to invest in their own big-ticket items.

Andy Prochazka, co-founder and CMO of Canadian online furniture retailer Article, joins us to discuss the ins and outs of selling high-end sofas, chairs and dining room sets directly to consumers.

Furniture/Home Furnishings and Office Equipment/Supplies. While the home improvement trend can’t account for all of the growth in the furniture/home furnishings and office equipment/supplies categories, it did drive a portion of sales in these categories as well.

Furniture and home furnishings will be tied for fourth with auto and parts, each with 10.8% of ecommerce sales. Categories Driving Ecommerce Growth. Auto and parts and food and beverage will be the fastest-growing ecommerce categories; both will see double-digit growth but from a relatively small base.

We surveyed 145 US digital ad buyers for consumer goods brands in several different product categories, such as grocery, household product, consumer electronics, and home furnishings.

The iPhone 12 Pro became the first phone to have a back-facing Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) camera, which enables more sophisticated augmented reality (AR). (Top-end Android phones use a similar Time-of-Flight, or ToF sensor.) Lidar can near-instantaneously detect depth and size, allowing for rapid and very detailed mixed reality functions for apps, such as furniture placement or full-body Snapchat Lenses. This should supercharge mobile AR spending and make such ads more feasible.

Furniture and home furnishings (Amazon’s growth: 15.7% versus total ecommerce: 10.3%). After big pandemic gains, growth in this vertical will slow in 2022. Yet, while supply chain issues and growing logistics costs have hurt competitors like Wayfair, Amazon’s gains are outperforming the market in this category.

Beauty, fashion, and home furnishings are three categories with clear applications for shopping-related AR. According to Shopify, interactions with products featuring 3D/AR content had a 94% higher conversion rate than those without it.

Alibaba recently unveiled an improved AR try-on experience for luxury brands in its Tmall app, while shoppers on JD.com’s app can virtually preview makeup, accessories, hairstyles, and furniture. JD.com said it has attracted roughly 100 million shoppers to its AR shopping, and the technology has resulted in an over 19.2% jump in conversion for furniture and other goods.