More Green Trends

As an addendum to my last post…. I find it very interesting that Amazon.. the epitome of a (green) online shopping business is recording record breaking sales on…e-books. They are outselling hard bound and paperback books combined. Though we all love curling up with a good book this goes one more step into the future. Think about the bulk of carrying around a book as it becomes dog-earred and tattered. Consider the backpacks filled with school books.. all replaced by a tablet reader. Then there are the trees to produce the paper and the landfills. Don’t forget the energy used to produce the book (printing, shipping etc). It is a very interesting trend.

Two New Trends That Have Eco Impact

There are two trends that we are finding across all markets (not exclusive to furniture) as we slowly emerge from the economic crunch. Both can be considered “green”.

The first is the rise in internet shopping. Whether it is because of the rising price of gasoline or simply due to the convenience and proliferation of computers, smart pads and smart phones- more people are doing their searches and shopping online. We have seen it personally but also article after article backs up our observations. Internet sales are up. Brick and mortar (the trade term for ‘stores’) sales are still struggling. The trends strongly indicate businesses that have a strong internet presence are in a better financial position and can offer their customers more.

The second trend is that there is more demand for customization and people are looking for quality in their purchases. I am not sure if this is because we are thirty to forty years into a trend of settling for a homogenized quality level. Perhaps it is because of so much of what we buy is made off shore and consumers are questioning the policy and quality of current furniture being offered.

This doesn’t mean that the personal customer service is out. It all depends upon the site. There are two that we deal with that are good examples. www.20besttwenty offers less per category than many sites but each item is carefully selected by them. Like a juried art show. They work hard to select the very best and have built their reputation for that. www.zecozi.com is green conscious. They have a following of loyal customers that interact with their site – sharing what their favorites are.

Customization and customer service are at our foundation. By doing things the way we do means we work in an eco-friendly manner. We listen carefully to the customer and build what they want specifically. www.barbofurniture.com has several pages dedicated to this theme.. yet still don’t show everything we have made or are capable of building. We are increasing our web presence and are carefully selecting sites we can work with.

Both trends are green. People are not as willing to settle for something that will.. get by. By taking this mindset they are doing their homework, purchasing once and throwing away less.

Our Changing World

I’ve decided to separate my two blogs. If you want to read the author blog go to: sageseedchronicles.wordpress.com. This blog is for the eco friendly furniture business. I have to say that since both come from me, my Science Fiction books have a strong eco base. Hey! They are a world of my creation! Why not!

I want to share what we have begun. Until last October we had a “brick & mortar” (a store) downtown. The economy being what it is we decided to close it and pulled back to one location. That being the small showroom with our furniture making wood-shop. Since then we have been expanding our web presence.. reaching out to the world of clients we had never touched. It is slow but is beginning to grow.

The first step was to form a network of willing customers that we could concentrate on and offer our best deals- lavishing our expertise and talents for this group most willing to receive our knowledge and services.

Then we began to reach out to select marketplaces on the net. First we found www.zecozi.com. They have many of our accessory pieces left over from our brick & mortar days. Now we have our beautiful exotic wood bracelets on the fantastic site: www.20besttwenty.com. Wow what a treat! Look under the “jewels” category!

There is another site that will feature some of our custom furniture. When we get on that site I will let you know. This is a step into the world and into the future. The net is where Gen X and GenY are as well as a number of other age groups. That is where we are and will be!

Introduction

 

Most people weigh all of their decisions against their wallet. This economy hasn’t done anything to change that and in fact it has strengthened the practice. So when I talk to customers about buying eco-friendly products, I had better have some monetary reasons in my discussion points. The argument; “It is the right thing to do” or “We need to save the rain forests and polar bears” may be a valid rationalization but it often will not wash when people are concerned about their “bottom line”.

The two strongest reasons to buy “green” that I talk about in my store are the health of the home environment and the sustainability aspect of “green” which saves the purchaser money over the long term. 

There are consumers that are either chemically sensitive or are concerned about the amount of chemicals that are in our environment and being absorbed by our bodies. They have heard enough on the news to be fearful. It is my job to do research on the products I carry. It is my commitment to my customers and my responsibility.

The sustainability issue is a monetarily practical issue but it also touches a larger pollution concern. If you buy the bargain sofa for $500 it will be easy on your budget now. The down side is that it won’t last more that five years and will need to be replaced. So figure that in the minimum 20 years it takes to raise a family you will replace that sofa four times. With normal inflation those sofas will probably not all be $500 so the total replacement costs of having a sofa is likely to at least be $2700. The pollution factors in with what you do with those four sofas when you replace them. Can they be recycled to a charity or a person in need or are they thrown away into a landfill and are deteriorating into the ground water?

The thread of these blog pieces is to explore how intertwined our desires to go “eco” and our monetary concerns balance with each other at all different levels. Join the discussion.