If you like home and decor, this is a great niche to get involved in internet marketing. From tables to towels, there is always someone searching and buying these items online.
In this article, I’ll show you how to sell furniture online to make some extra cash or better yet, kick start a business idea.
Research The Product Trend
Furniture is a broad definition for many household items so before getting started, it’s important to know which kind of products are popular and which ones are not. A great tool for finding out this information is to check on Google Trend.
For example, you can see that ‘Dining Sets” and “Vintage Tables” have an upward trend which means, many people are searching for them online.
On the other hand, “Figurines” and “China Cabinets” are moving in the downward trends so these products might not sell as fast as compared to other furniture items. However, it doesn’t mean that they can’t make good profits. You just need to do a bit more research.
How to Sell Furniture Online
Now that you have some rough ideas on what kind of furniture that sells, let’s take a look at how you can get started.
(1) Sell for Cash or Side-Income
Very often, people start with what they have; selling items to make more space, moving to smaller apartments or simply clearing away their vintage collection. In these situations, they just want to make some extra cash on a furniture that still has some good values for the next buyer.
For this purpose, listing the item on furniture specific marketplaces is a great option because these sites are visited by targeted audience, which means, people who are searching with the intent of buying unique second-hand furniture online.
As a seller, you’ll need to check on some of these;
- Is the listing free?
- What’s the competition like in the marketplace for the same type of item?
- Do they provide any advice for pricing?
- How much percentage does the marketplace take from a sales transaction?
- What kind of items that are not allowed to be listed due to legislation?
- How does the marketplace optimize listing for your furniture?
- Is it easy to make changes to a product listing?
- What kind of shipping services, fees and policies that are being offered?
- What do other sellers have to say about using this marketplace?
If the answers meet your expectations, then you can consider selling your furniture in that particular platform. Some of the recommended marketplace for listing are Chairish, AptDeco and Etsy.
(2) Sell as a Small Business
Now, if you own a retail business or have access to furniture warehouses, the next best thing to do is to create an online store. The most common place that people would go to is eBay and although it’s fairly popular, it’s also very saturated with a lot of competitions. Plus, when you consider all the fees involved, it’s not that easy to make money on eBay. The cost of selling an item can actually drive you up the wall.
A better alternative is to build an online store through a business website. With this method, you can create your own branding and design your own marketing strategy tailored to a specific audience.
The WordPress platform offers a variety of themes and plugins that can assist you in setting up a store even without any experience. For a more professional approach and better product organization, premium services are always available for upgrades.
If you own a local retail, you should also get your business listed on Google. So when someone searches for a certain furniture within an area, your business information will show up on their result page, just like this example.
(3) Promote as an Affiliate Marketer
For the third method, you don’t actually need to own any furniture in order to sell. By promoting as an affiliate marketer, you work with a merchant and earn a certain percentage when someone buy through your recommendation. There are actually several advantages to this;
- Furniture are usually big ticket items which means, they sell in hundreds or thousands of dollars. A small percentage of a sale can yield a big commission (offers range between 5 to 20%) for you.
- You can work with several merchants to increase your income stream.
- You don’t have to worry about logistics and shipping; the merchant will handle everything.
On top of that, finding an affiliate program for this niche is a pretty straightforward process.
Type “furniture” + “affiliate program” into Google Search and you’ll see some of the top furniture merchants. Sign up for affiliate networks such as Rakuten Linkshare and search for merchants under “Home and Decor” categories.
However, the most important thing as an affiliate marketer is to learn how to drive traffic to your blog through keyword research. Take a look at the keywords that I found using Jaaxy Keyword Tool.
If you look closely at the keywords that I have checked (√), these are long-tail and low competition key phrases that talk about cleaning, designing and best prices for furniture. So instead of just selling furniture, your affiliate blog can also offer additional information relating to cleaning and home improvement tips.
Can you see how keyword research can make your blog more diverse and attractive to visitors? Not only that, you also get to work with different affiliate programs in the furniture industry.
Online Furniture Business Is Huge!
I hope this article has given you some helpful insights on how to make profit selling furniture online. The income opportunity for this niche is enormous and if you are highly interested, visit my recommended training platform to learn how you can get started as a seller or an affiliate marketer.
Do you have any thoughts or questions about this topic? Just drop me a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
Hi Cathy,
There’s a lot of really great information here! I don’t really have any experience with selling furniture, but it sounds like it can be very lucrative if you know what you are doing. Affiliate marketing for furniture would be really great since like you said, furniture is a high-end item so you can make a good deal on commissions.
Hi,
I just read your article and the Google Trends tool interests me a great deal. Does it work for all items? Also I’ve never worked with Rakuten. Are they reputable? I am in a very competitive niche and anything such as Google Trends can give me the edge.
Hi there Steven,
Google Trend works well with key phrases when it has sufficient data to display. When it doesn’t, it would say ‘Not enough search volume to show graphs’. When it’s valid, it’s only good for showing a product trend; it won’t be able to give you concrete data like what a keyword research tool would show.
If you are in a very competitive niche, I highly recommend that you choose low-competition long-tail keywords for your content because they are easier to rank. For more information on this, you can check the perks of using Jaaxy Keyword Tool.
Rakuten is one of the more reputable affiliate networks out there and depending on your niche, they do have some big brands that you can work with.
Hey Cathy,
What a great analysis on how to sell furniture. It was quite complete and could be used by anyone to get started in creating a viable business. This is definitely how posts should be, full of great information that is immediately usable.
I especially liked how you set out many alternatives for people to find what may work for them. Thanks for sharing this awesome post.
My pleasure Jim,
I am just presenting how ordinary people like us can set up a business by ourselves, without all the ‘guru’ talks. I think a lot of marketing theories are very inflated out there and no one seems to show beginners what the back-end data/work really look like in terms of making money online. I will be digging on other niche topics in several posts to come, so stay tuned.
Hey there!
Pretty cool how we have so much information at our fingertips today. I really liked this post because it shows you how results and Google is really cool about being able to do that research.
What kind of keyword tool are you using? I really like how it is laid out. I am going to check out your Rakuten post.
Hi there Shawn,
I am using Jaaxy Keyword Tool for my research. It has a very clean and easy to understand interface (hence the lay out) and I use it simultaneously with Google Trend to brainstorm for topic ideas. A very handy tool for anyone who wants to build good quality content that will rank on the internet.
You can read more about it in my personal review here.
Hi Cathy,
What a nice and informative page on the selling furniture subject. I will be showing this to my wife tomorrow, and I bet she will be happy with all the tips you provide.
I did not know about Google Trend. That is noted for later use. I am sure this is very useful in many scenarios. I was not aware of how to search for affiliate programs too.
Learned a lot by reading your post. Thank you 🙂
Hi there Thomas,
Google Trend is a great tool to use if you can identify the key phrases that have sufficient data. From there, you’ll extrapolate into longer keywords and then use Jaaxy to research for your competition.
The furniture niche is a big one if you decide to get involved with it so I hope this article will help out your wife in her business. If she needs any help getting started, just let me know OR she can also check out the Online Entrepreneurship Certification at Wealthy Affiliate training area.
Cathy, I am grateful you cover in details every topic about making money onlne from music to flower to furniture.
There seem to be quite a few opportunities for those interested in running a furniture business themselves with their popularity and low hanging keywords. Nonetheless, no matter how low competition a keyword is, you got to have something to rank there, right? I’d like to know more about how to rank on search engines.
Thanks in advance!
Hi there Anh,
Getting ranked on search engine depends on several factors. This is the checklist that I usually follow;
1. Target a low competition long-tail keyword.
2. Ensure that SEO settings are optimized (learn to set up All in One SEO here).
3. Write at least 1000 words/article.
4. Include relevant imagery and videos.
5. Actively involved in reader’s comment.
6. Share the content socially.
7. Resubmit my sitemap every 2 weeks to improve indexing.
Hope this helps.