Home Entertainment Purchase Priorities

Published: March, 03 2008

By Thomas A. Prais

The selection of home entertainment furniture isn’t always just about the furniture. In many ways, this category is about the way a consumer thinks about his or her relationship to the television and other media—some want the television concealed when not in use, others want their furniture to do nothing so much as show off their larger-than-life plasmas.

For instance, 62 percent of home entertainment purchasers in this year’s The Retail Experience survey agreed or strongly agreed that their home entertainment purchase had to include media storage. Clearly, retailers should keep media storage at the forefront of their mind when selecting and selling home entertainment furniture.

Media storage rated especially high among retail-branded store shoppers, consumers 45 years or older, Southerners, and those who purchased transitional home entertainment furniture. Men and those who purchased contemporary furniture, on the other hand, were less likely to have strong feelings about a piece’s storage capabilities.

Having a home entertainment center that “matched” the look of their television was an important purchase consideration for slightly more than half of The Retail Experience survey respondents. Those who bought contemporary were 25 percent more likely to want their home entertainment furniture to match their television, while those who purchased Craftsman-style furniture were less likely to be concerned about an aesthetic match with their TV.

Only 21 percent of respondents considered the ability to conceal their television to be an important feature. Surprisingly, women were less concerned than men with concealing their television. Only 19 percent of women considered it an important consideration, compared to 24 percent of men.

The biggest differences among the purchase priorities of survey respondents was between those who spent $2,500 or more on their home entertainment purchase and those who spent less. As the chart below indicates, big-spending consumers don’t want to sacrifice style or function: