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Last updated on: July 18, 2023
Research conducted by Red Points shows that, when it comes to buying designer furniture and homeware products, brand loyalty is not what drives consumers.
Key findings
The homeware and furniture market has seen steady growth over the past five years and is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. The global market is estimated to be worth more than $157 billion in 2017. The highest growth in the sector has come from China, where the market is now the largest in the world and worth $58 billion annually. The Chinese market is expected to continue to grow by 14% year on year. This explosion in demand has been met by a host of new companies across the world offering innovative and creative designs.
But as the market grows, so does the number of counterfeit homeware products. Illegal copies are especially common online, where, now more than ever, people are turning to buy this type of goods.
In order to understand how prominent the counterfeiting problem is and how likely people are to purchase illegal replicas Red Points, the technological solution in online brand protection, conducted a study in which over 200 people in the United States were surveyed about their perceptions and attitudes towards buying design homeware products.
The study reveals that 75.4% of millennials buy designer homeware or furniture products online. This is important considering that, when shopping through the internet, customers have only reviews and images to judge a product or seller’s validity, which makes it easier for counterfeiters to deceive consumers. To make things worse, more than half of the sample stated they do not feel confident they can identify non-genuine products online, meaning they are even more susceptible to illegal replicas.
When searching for this products online, Amazon comes as the favorite among consumers, with 64% of design furniture and homeware customers choosing this platform as a means for buying this kind of products.
One of the most interesting insights this research provides has to do with the motivations of customers and their level of price sensitivity vs brand sensitivity. Sadly, when given the choice between a product from a well-known designer or a cheaper one with the same design on Amazon, 82% of consumers would opt to buy the Amazon product, which means that people are more incentivized by price and design, not brand loyalty.
The lack of awareness, combined with consumers motivations, leave homeware brands open to exploitation by counterfeits, which today make a $460 billion market and account for almost 5% of all goods imported to the EU.