Furniture Sales are Being Disrupted
In 2004 only 3.2% of furniture sales were made online. Today, it is more than 15%. That growth is beginning to change the entire landscape of furnishing a home. 
The disruption is starting, yet most furniture stores are still clinging to old ways of doing business. But with disruption comes opportunity. New services will need to expand to meet the new disrupted model:
- Online consultations with interior designers
- Virtual reality technology on how your room can look with new decorations and furniture
- Concierge or white-glove delivery services including installation or hanging decorations on walls
- Independent reviewing services of furniture with comfort ratings (how soft is that couch?)
Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart and Wayfair are now the big players in selling furniture. Yet local outlets can still survive with innovation and rethinking of the user experience.
Most popular online stores in the furniture and appliances segment in the United States in 2017, by e-commerce net sales (in million U.S. dollars)
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
