Room Planners studies consumer behavior in home
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, April 6, 2008
Centerport, N.Y. — When Loreen Epp was directing marketing and merchandising for furniture makers and retailers such as Staples, Levitz, Seaman's and Palliser, she often longed for reliable information about what consumers really wanted — not just what they saw in furniture stores or said in focus groups.
"I wished I could get inside their heads," said Epp. She recalled that even when she did research, consumers might give the thumbs up to one product direction, but then make a different choice once they started shopping.
"There was some information about what the furniture industry thought consumers wanted, but virtually no research on what they do, or how they make decisions," she said. "I wished there was a way to find out more about the consumer's real life at home, and what influences their lifestyle and furniture purchases."
Since that way didn't exist, she decided to create it — and Room Planners, her consulting firm, was born.
By analyzing hundreds of real consumer rooms and comments each month, along with tracking key images in TV, movies, magazines, books, show homes, furniture stores, Web sites and more, Room Planners aims to offer the furniture industry a first-hand look at how the media, consumer lifestyles and home realities drive home furnishings preferences and decisions.
The company identifies both style preferences and functional shifts affecting consumer behavior in the home.
Information is available via subscriptions to Room Review reports, Room Cues that show emerging colors and styles proving popular with consumers, trade show news, and special reports that highlight a significant shift in consumer spending or priorities.
"The furniture industry has traditionally believed that consumers decide how to furnish their homes by looking at furniture stores, but their preferences are actually formed over time by many influences that we need to monitor and understand," said Epp.
She said closer observation of other industries is also necessary to understand consumer behavior today. "By keeping our finger on the pulse on the most important consumer influences, habits and priorities, we provide ideas that are reliable, relevant and cost-effective," she added.
Her research is already turning up a few surprises.
"Consumers aren't nearly as up-to-date on furniture as the industry thinks they are, and many are as interested as much in comfort, easy care and other factors as they are in style," she said. "Changing out sofas and bedrooms in furniture stores every few months appears to be much more important to retailers than it is to consumers."
Epp adds that many consumers look for small, quick decor changes and ideas for their home that they don't find in most furniture stores. She has also found that the current trend for more storage and better organization may be the most important home phenomenon of the new millennium.
"As an industry, we make and sell one of the most powerful organizational products on the market, yet furniture hasn't evolved to meet current consumer needs and market changes," said Epp.
She said Room Planners brings together influences and best practices across multiple industries, with product ideas and application methods geared to furniture products and marketing messages.
For Epp, what makes the company different is that it "relies more on real-world observation than on 'would-you-buy-this surveys' or 'what's next' trend speculation. It's hard to be wrong when conclusions are based on real-life consumer activity and interest, not on hypothetical questions, or product trends we hope catch on."
