Dining Furniture Trends in the Northeast
Published: March, 31 2008
By Thomas A. Prais
Shoppers don’t just evaluate a product in and of itself when making a purchase decision. The store in which they shop influences their decision in all sorts of complicated ways, and store expectations can vary from region to region. Whereas surveyed dining room shoppers, in general, most often cited the overall quality of the product carried as a top-three consideration as to where they made their dining furniture purchase, it was only the fifth most cited consideration among respondents in the Northeast.
Instead, among dining room furniture shoppers in the Northeast, a store’s selection was the most cited reason for choosing to purchase from a particular retailer. A retailer’s proximity to the customer’s home, as well as a store’s ability to deliver an item in a short period of time, were the second and third most cited responses, respectively. Compared to shoppers from other regions, it would seem dining room furniture consumers from the Northeast value convenience over other qualities—important information for the retailer trying to craft an area-specific message about his brand.
Dining furniture consumers from the Northeast also hit different price points than similar consumers elsewhere, though those differences tended to average out in the long run. Survey participants in the Northeast spent $1,533 on their dining room furniture purchase, compared to $1,547 nationally. Nineteen percent of dining furniture purchases in the Northeast occurred in the $250-$399 range, compared to 12 percent nationally. At the same time, only 6 percent of such purchases in the Northeast lay in the $1,500-$2,499 range, compared to 10 percent nationally.
Northeastern dining furniture shoppers’ interest in green products were on par with the average U.S. furniture shopper, but they had a very different idea about what counts as “green.” Northeastern dining furniture consumers were less likely to be concerned with whether a product was manufactured in an eco-friendly factory and were more interested in whether a product could be recycled.
