The problem that only you can solve.
Any business must exist to solve a problem.. so what’s the problem with office furniture that you can help to solve? Firstly let’s try to understand how painful it is usually for companies to purchase office furniture. They typically have two sub-optimal options: either pay huge amounts of money for high-end, customized office furniture and office chairs which is purchased through furniture dealers, or purchase cheaply made office furniture for a fraction of the price, but with little/no service and the expectation that the furniture would last for only a year or two. Neither option offers customers the flexibility or support they need after the transaction!
Sure, but is there a scalable demand?
Well, have you ever seen an empty office like this? It is obvious that human beings will go to work, even if they work from home, or co-works,, or in their offices. As the pandemic effects wear out, people return to offices, and commercial activity restarts, there will be a need to furnish large-scale offices, and anyway, even during the pandemic, the global sale of work chairs, home office desks and other work-related furniture remained robust and actually even grew while many other industries faced severe distress.
Great, so how do I start an Office Furniture Business?
Like for any business, the basics are the same in the office furniture business. You need to:
– Research your market for potential customers, competition, price points, tax and legal structure, opportunities and threats.
– Decide your brand, logo, company structure, registrations and other paperwork/formalities you need to get started.
– Talk to some reputed office furniture manufacturers and shortlist products from their website/catalogue that you feel will be accepted in your market. Negotiate price, quantity and delivery terms to ensure you have a profitable business opportunity.
– Decide on your sales channel for e.g. if you want to sell only through a physical showroom, or a store in store concept or through your website or through e-commerce platforms like Amazon. You may even want to sell directly to businesses only, without needing a website or a showroom. This largely depends on your market and your own skillset.
– Make a plan with timelines and financial projections: Many well-intentioned ideas do not succeed because they do not have a time-bound plan and measurable results to assess against. Make a SMART plan for yourself and set up to succeed.
– Focus on Execution: 90% of businesses that fail, do so because they are not executed well. Make sure your marketing plans, sales efforts, operations and customer service are all set up to function like a well-oiled machine.
– Increase the Depth & Width of the market: Any product or service that you sell in any market has the capacity for growth. Either you can go deeper to find new opportunities in existing markets with new products, new features or more customers or you can look for width by going after new markets, new segments and so on. For e.g., if you are an office furniture store already and start talking to commercial real estate agents/ landlords or companies starting new offices to undertake commercial workspace furniture projects, that is a new category that helps increase your width. (Click here to know more).
What are the precautions I should take when I start an Office Furniture Business?
Whether you are starting a new business in Office Furniture, or already run a furniture business and are starting Office Furniture as a new vertical, there are basic precautions that will make your business sustainable and less prone to risk:
– Get the basics right: Very often when starting, we ignore the basics like our brand registration, getting a copyright for our logo, building a high-performing, website etc and later these issues come back to irk us and sometimes even pose an existential threat.
– Be ready to adapt: The best plans are prone to failure. As you step out and face the reality of the marketplace, be willing and nimble to change your plans, quickly adapt and grow your Office Furniture business, irrespective of the hurdles you will undoubtedly face.
– Find the right skills and partners: Nobody has all the skills & resources required for a business. You need partners, co-founders, investors, suppliers and the entire ecosystem that enables any business to succeed. Make sure you work with reliable people and build an environment of positivity around yourself.
How/Why Stellar can help you start your own Office Furniture Business?
With a network of over 100+ countries worldwide and experience of more than 32 years in the business, Stellar, which is an office chair and office furniture manufacturer has an immense wealth of knowledge that we can share with you.
Having worked with hundreds of Office Furniture Retail chains and stores across the world, we have a very good idea of what works and what doesn’t. Where you should go to reduce cost and where you should invest more. What marketing strategies work and what don’t? How other furniture stores are succeeding and why some are not able to grow.
To take advantage of all these insights and start/grow your office furniture business, please feel free to arrange an online meeting. We’d love to understand your business goals and how we can be your partners in progress.
