JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — E-commerce furniture brand has doubled down on its efforts to attract commercial clients, updating its website earlier this year to appeal to trade customers and launching a separate business-to-business portal this month.
Revenue from trade clients focused on hospitality, office, restaurant and large-scale commercial projects, such as pre-furnished condos, has risen from about 10% to 20% to between 30% and 35%, said Ian Leslie, chief marketing officer, although it has gone as high as 45% at times.
The brand began in the trade space, he said, but during the pandemic its focus shifted toward the consumer market, which had significantly ramped up its online purchasing of home furnishings.
Now, however, consumers have pulled back on spending, and the e-commerce space is more competitive with many players who entered during COVID.
“We’re in a unique niche,” explained Leslie. “We’re a traditional e-commerce company with a strong consumer aesthetic but which also serves the trade. We’re an interesting animal.
“We love our consumer and the consumer buyer,” he said, but that customer “is more expensive to attain and satisfy. With all the economic changes going on around us, it’s hard to compete with some models,” he said, citing offers by some online players such as free returns. “The trade is where our margins are made.”
Trade customers are also more likely to be repeat buyers, coming back for second and third purchases, said Leslie. This is truer for commercial trade than interior designers, he added.
Industry West, which serves interior designers as well as the B2B trade, is segmenting these two channels by creating a separate portal for its commercial clients that debuts mid-June. Both will have access to discounts, but B2B customers will also receive custom catalogs showing what’s on hand, as well as what’s out of stock and when it will be available, and have access to products not offered to consumers.
Rather than offer trade discounts based on the number of items ordered, Industry West has gone to a tiered model in which discounts rise as the dollar amount of the order increases. Discounts begin at 20% for orders up to $10,000 and rise to 30% off for $25,000 or more.
To better target the trade, Industry West has participated in a few trade shows and done some non-conventional marketing such as putting a custom ad skin on delivery truck in New York. But Leslie said the primary focus will be on marketing to the top B2B clients, educating them on what’s available and getting them into the new portal.
The company launched its new website in March, which was created by web developer Domaine, to make it work for its dual audience of consumers and trade buyers.
Both groups, said Leslie, “are still scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest,” looking for products that fit their aesthetic. “If they like the product, they will come to the website and ask for it.” The difference being, however, that if the B2B trade customer sees a chair, “they’ll go the website and ask for 50 of them.”