The closure of physical furniture stores has accelerated the shift from shopping in-store to online and many brands have had to refocus their efforts on digitisation to attract and retain customers who have grown to expect convenience and personalisation. Similarly, the rapid growth of the rental market is allowing consumers to be more flexible, and trend led in their purchasing decisions. New technologies in AI form are allowing retailers to showcase their products, without customers even visiting their stores.
What is the BOSCO™ Index?
The BOSCO™ index is a measure of how well you are exploiting your digital opportunities compared to your competitors. The index is computed 0 – 1000, with 575 being the average score for brands and retailers.
A score of 1000 would mean a domain is the only competitor in that country and category, a score of zero would mean the domain has no offering online. Using cutting edge data science, BOSCO™ pulls in third-party data for the domains to rank and compare their paid search and SEO offering and each website’s online performance.
Here’s how we scored the brands
We scored ten leading UK furniture retailers for the months of June to July. Here’s how the top five ranked on the BOSCO™ Index league table. Download the league table below to see the full results.
Founded in Sweden, Ikea is one of the UK’s most popular and largest furniture retailers. Ikea has over 27 large stores, with the recent expansion of smaller store formats such as urban, pick-up and pop-up. Last year, the retailer announced that their online sales were 31% higher than the previous year.
Ikea have been utilising and experimenting with VR and AI years before the pandemic. They launched Ikea Place in 2017, allowing consumers to virtually place true-to-scale models of IKEA furniture in their own homes, to see how it will fit and look before purchasing.
Today, the app has features that combine AI and AR, and people can do more than just place furniture. Consumers can get smart home furnishing tips and recommendations based on curation, context and behaviour.
Despite the reopening of physical stores, many consumers have become accustomed to online shopping, immersive experiences, and the convenience it presents.
Furniture Village have recently launched ‘Virtual Village’, a 3D virtual showroom that offers shoppers a fully immersive shopping experience where they are invited to browse accompanied by expert advice, which comes live from the shop floor via phone, LiveChat or video call.
Similarly, other furniture retailers such as John Lewis and Sofology (part of the DFS group) have rolled our rental and subscription services for their products.
This service gives their customers access to their high-quality products at a price they can afford. As well as the flexibility to enjoy living with a bold, trend-led piece of furniture that they may not want forever. Ultimately, this facilitates the transition to a circular economy. With many retailers trialling or even using this service, items can be returned to the retailer and reused, or recycled in the correct manner.
How does your brand stack up on the BOSCO™ Index? You can find out your BOSCO™ Index for free or to book a personalised demo to find out how our predictive analytics platform can work for you.
