Buying home decoration accessories off the web is no easy breeze
The sheer range of choices can instantly overwhelm even the most intent browser
Idecided this year to replace my bathroom vanity lights, a pair of decades-old fluorescent sconces that gave off a shrill hum almost as irritating as their bluish hue. With lights like these, there was nowhere to go but up.
I had never bought sconces before, yet I figured this quest would be simple, if only because the bar was set so low. Then I went online. I started with Wayfair, the online home decor company with a vast inventory, including some 13,000 vanity lights. If you’ve ever spent time buying home furnishings online, you probably already know where this adventure will lead: to many more websites, passionate customer reviews and eventually heart palpitations.
Complicated proposition
As online shopping eclipses bricks-and-mortar, Americans are getting used to the idea that we can buy lamps, sofas and area rugs from our iPhones, too. While we’re still more likely to buy an Xbox online than an end table, home furnishings make up a sizeable portion of our digital purchases, with $35 billion (Dh128 billion) in sales in 2014, according to Statista.
In 2017, home furnishings accounted for 12 per cent of our online purchases, a figure that Statista predicts will grow to 13.9 per cent by 2022.
For a company like Wayfair, our increasing willingness to buy a bed without ever testing it out has translated to traffic. In 2017, the company had 11 million active customers, up 33 per cent from 2016. Sales grew by 40 per cent in 2017, to $4.7 billion.
But buying a coffee table online is not the same experience as buying a blouse. If the blouse doesn’t fit or the turquoise is really more of a teal, you can leave it on the kitchen counter until you get around to shipping it back. If the dining table doesn’t fit, though, you might not be able to get it through the front door. Returning that large object is a complicated (and sometimes costly) proposition.
Sensory overload
Bricks-and-mortar shopping is no breeze, either. Dizzy from my digital quest for the perfect sconce (does such a thing even exist?), I decided to drive to a lighting store and see one in real life.
So on a raw Saturday in
March, I dragged the kids to Capitol Lighting, a glittering showroom in northern New Jersey displaying every kind of light imaginable.
The sensory overload I experienced online paled in comparison to what I was experiencing in these half a dozen rooms bathed in light bulbs.
My 7-year-old daughter insisted we buy a $35,000 disco ball-style chandelier just as my 10-year-old son began to ominously reach for a crystal dangling from a $15,000 fixture. We left. That night, back at my computer, I considered my options and, after double checking the measurements, settled on a pair of angular sconces that looked like they would give off plenty of light. They cost around $100 each.
While we’re still more likely to buy an Xbox online than an end table, home furnishings make up a sizeable portion of our digital purchases.