The winners within living room furniture over the next five years will be those where customers are able to switch seamlessly between online and stores when looking to buy, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest report ‘UK Living Room Furniture Market 2019’, shows that the living room furniture market will grow by £437m over the next five years to be worth just under £5bn by 2024. Online will drive this growth over the period, with penetration at just under a quarter by 2024, but stores still have a key part to play in the purchasing journey as shoppers want to shop how and when it suits them.

Matt Walton, Senior Data Analyst at GlobalData comments, “Online remains the main channel used for pre-purchase research, but 71.5% of shoppers visited a store. Increasingly, living room furniture shoppers are researching and purchasing across channels: 62.1% of those that agreed that it was important to visit a store made their final decision remotely, and 64.3% of those that researched online first said that it was also important to visit a store. Physical outlets are still very important when determining which retailer to buy from even if the purchase itself is increasingly made online, making it even more essential for retailers to fully integrate the two channels.”

GlobalData’s report also reveals that IKEA and Sofology are set to be the retailers which capitalise the most on the recovery within the living room furniture market in 2019, as continued real earnings growth gives consumers more confidence.

Walton continues, “IKEA will continue to gain share as its exceptional value credentials resonate with shoppers, and its innovative approach to storage matches up well with the current consumer demand to maximise their living space. Sofology’s share uplift will come from maintaining awareness of their offer by opening new sites in areas of weak coverage, via capitalising on DFS’ greater marketing spend and by sharing physical sites with its parent retailer.”