Ecommerce Challenges for Home & Garden Brands | Salsify

Traditional home and garden brands are facing pressure from new competitors who sell online. Established brands must adapt or risk losing significant market share in their categories to these newcomers. 

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Home and garden brands face significant challenges

You might be wondering, if consumer confidence is strong, and home and garden brands are performing well overall, why should they be concerned about ecommerce share and digital commerce? Here are some of the challenges that home and garden brands are actively facing in today’s modern commerce environment:

Rise of private label brands

Many online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target have launched their own label of home and garden products. Their products are usually highly comparable to those of traditional home and garden brands in quality, price, and ease of access.

Digitally Native Vertical Brands (DNVBs)

DNVBs are highly specialized companies that sell products to a specific target audience. They typically start out with no physical retailing space, but that’s not to say that physical retail can’t play a role in their strategy. They’re gaining popularity and market share quickly. It’s estimated that web-only brands grew three times faster than total U.S. ecommerce, which means that traditional home and garden brands need to be prepared to compete with these brands in all arenas, but especially online. Some home and garden DNVBs to look out for are bed-in-a-box manufacturer Casper and furniture innovator Burrow. Brands like these are usually seen as honest, responsible and friendly, as well as cost-saving due to their D2C model which eliminates the middle-man markups that most traditional home and garden brands have experienced since their rise. Additionally, these brands are getting support from venture capitalists, which only indicates their increasing and continued influence on market trends and consumer behaviors. 

What’s next for home and garden brands?

While big changes are hard, there are some key themes to keep in mind that can help guide any organization forward.

Who is your target audience? Figure out who they are, and embrace them as the loyal, lifelong customer you expect them to be. 

Gain their trust and keep it by continually striving to create products and experiences that demonstrate your authentic commitment to serving them. Use every opportunity to reinforce this mission through your design and messaging on your brand website, social media channels, and wherever else you appear.

Achieve visibility. Search results (both organic and paid). 

Constantly refresh your product detail page to always reflect the best your product has to offer throughout the year. This may include new versions of the product, seasonal changes, or trying bundles and other offers.

Constantly measure your performance and respond. home and garden brands need to experiment within the market to establish the correct strategy or risk losing market share. Once products are at the top of a category, they are constantly rewarded with better search performance and conversions, but falling to the bottom means that products quickly cease to have relevance.