‍How Australian Consumers Actually Find and Choose Furniture Online

Think about the last time you bought furniture. You probably didn’t start in a showroom on an arvo, getting lost in showrooms that feel more like mazes, you probably started on your phone, searching and looking for modern furniture in Australia.

Gone are the days when Aussies discovered furniture simply by strolling through showrooms. Online1`2345shopping is now the norm where you can discover modern furniture through scrolling and searching from a home-makeover Reel from Instagram or a saved home mood board from Pinterest. As a result of endless scrolling, before stepping foot in a store (if you ever do), you’ve already formed a shortlist of brands, styles, and price points.

Furnishing a home is deeply personal and an exciting journey filled with new possibilities. It reflects your style and meets your needs. Shopping for furniture online in Australia has become an increasingly popular option since it becomes the default first step. For this reason, furniture retailers must shift their mindset: you’re not just a showroom + website, you’re a multi-touch digital brand that connects with consumers. Australians aren’t just browsing furniture online—they’re choosing brands long before they hit “add to cart.”

By understanding where and how Australians discover furniture brands online, you can ensure you’re present at every stage of the journey, not just during sales. That’s the strategic advantage LTBS brings to its furniture-brand clients, naming Artspire Home, Chairsoo, Woodtalk, Furniture Now, and many more. 

So, how do consumers actually find and choose to buy furniture online in Australia? We've got you covered. We will show you exactly where your customers are looking and how to make sure they find you first—and make sure they purchase.

The Modern Australian Furniture Buyer Journey

Before diving into online furniture shopping in Australia, it’s crucial to understand that every Aussies walk through a journey before they purchase, they usually move through these stages:

1. Inspiration: Every upgrade starts on an inspiration. Aussies scroll through home décor Reels, save design mood boards, compare trending interior styles, and follow creators whose homes match the aesthetic they want. This early-stage engagement heavily influences which brands make the initial shortlist.
2. Research: Googling phrases like “modern furniture Australia”, “dining table online Australia”, “best outdoor furniture”. Shoppers visit brand blogs, read buying guides, explore comparison articles, and check product dimensions, reviews, and delivery terms before adding anything to cart.
3. Comparison: Where consumers can evaluate price, style, delivery times, and social proof in one place. Marketplaces like Temple & Webster, Brosa, and Zanui are common mid-journey stops because they help Aussies benchmark value quickly.
4. Purchase: Done either on the brand website, or via a marketplace/retailer platform. Choosing the brand that offered the clearest information, strongest social proof, and most seamless user experience at every step.

For every business, this means the buyer journey is no longer linear. It’s circular, multi-channel, and heavily influenced by content and visibility. To win, retailers must strategically connect inspiration → research → comparison → conversion without dropping the customer at any touchpoint.

Moreover, there’s an ongoing trend that Aussies follow when buying furniture, known as the Research Online, Purchase Offline (ROPO) effect, where consumers research online before buying, even if they ultimately purchase the item in-store. This behaviour aligns with findings from Kaemingk (2020), who reported that 97% of consumers conduct online research before making any purchase on online stores. 

Furthermore, Chen and Xie (2008) found that reviews and ratings significantly influence purchase decisions because they describe real user experiences rather than just product features, while Bickart and Schindler (2001) showed that online product reviews are more influential than company-provided information, offering greater credibility, relevance, and emotional connection for shoppers.

For furniture retailers, this means you’re rarely the only touchpoint. You must win all throughout from inspiration, visibility, comparison and trust and not just through checkout. 

Where Australians Actually Find Furniture Online

Channel #1: Search Engines: The Starting Point

Search engines (primarily Google Search) remain the foundational discovery channel, controlling around 90% of the global search market. For Australian e-commerce, a high share of traffic still originates via search as it makes the starting point for most online searches, especially in the furniture industry. 

They are a crucial part of omnichannel experience since consumers typically start by "scouring the internet" to gather information, compare prices, and read reviews, with search engines facilitating this initial broad exploration. Additionally, shoppers tend to trust organic search results more than paid advertisements. 

In the furniture industry, the purchase decision is research-intensive. Shoppers want visuals, specs, delivery/returns info—and search is where they look. It is not just a channel, it’s the entry point to your brand. 

If you’re not visible on page one for both discovery and comparison keywords, you lose the opportunity to influence your customer before they even know your name. Google allows shoppers to form first impressions quickly, and brands that invest in SEO, structured data, high-quality product pages, and comparison-style content maintain a competitive edge in the furniture category.

Here’s what do: 

LTBS Expert Insight

1. Prioritise high-intent long-tail keywords such as “buy modern sofa online Australia”, “dining set for small apartments Melbourne”, “Australian made timber coffee table e-commerce”.
2. Whether you’re using voice technology or not, always use location-based modifiers (“Sydney”, “Melbourne”, “Australia”) because local relevance matters and Google prioritises local SEO. 
3. Build descriptive product-pages, category landing pages and blog content (for example “How to choose a dining table for hard-floors”) so you capture search traffic at multiple purchase-journey stages.
4. Audit your website’s keyword targeting and content depth. Are you covering discovery keywords and comparison keywords? Are your product pages optimised for SEO (title tags, structured data, internal links) and for conversion (clear delivery/returns, visuals, social proof). 

Channel #2: Social Media: The Visual Discovery Engine

65% of people are visual learners, making it the most dominant single learning style preference, so it’s a hit to make visuals, especially for your furniture. Every consumer needs to have an inspiration in order for them to make their own style. Visual inspiration is crucial as consumers often engage with furniture brands through:

1. Instagram & Pinterest: Mood boards, saved designs, “shop the look” posts. These platforms act as digital mood boards for Aussies, who often save posts before they even know which brand they belong to. As well as Pinterest, reports millions of monthly searches from Australians for terms like “living room ideas,” “small apartment furniture,” and “modern home design.”
2. TikTok: quick room-makeover videos, product-reveal clips, and additional designs for a room. TikTok’s algorithm favours aesthetic transformations, making it a major driver for impulse furniture discovery. The rise of “TikTok Made Me Buy It” also extends into homewares and furniture, influencing purchase decisions even before search begins.
3. Facebook Marketplace: for browsing and checking what products they have and mostly used for brand pages for reviews. Marketplace browsing is common among Aussie consumers looking for deals, second-hand finds, or quick delivery options, but they often click through to brand pages to verify legitimacy and read reviews.
4. Influencer / UGC content: seeing influencers use products and then being added to their house increases product trust. Every UGC content they consume, they scroll with purpose because consumers want value, proof, and visual validation. A study by Bazaarvoice found that Australians rely heavily on UGC before making home-related purchases because it shows real rooms, real sizing, and real quality, reducing the uncertainty of buying furniture online.

Additionally, visuals are a must when buying online because consumers cannot physically touch or examine products in an e-commerce environment so they resort to looking at visuals. 

Every visual becomes the illustration that helps tell the story. High-quality lifestyle photos, 360-degree product views, and short-form video walkthroughs significantly improve conversion because they replicate the in-store experience digitally.

It’s time to reevaluate your social media marketing. Is your Instagram inspiring enough? Does your TikTok feature influencers referencing your products? Does your social media connect well with your consumers, and does it serve its value through saves, link-clicks, and retargeting? Are you leveraging the aesthetic nature of furniture to create scroll-stopping content? If not yet, here’s our guide for you:

LTBS Expert Insight

1. Create visually consistent brand feeds: colour palette, room-set photography, lifestyle shots.
2. Use “Shop the Look” tags & Instagram shopping links so inspiration converts.
3. Collaborate with micro-influencers or real-customer features showing how the furniture looks in real homes. That builds trust and reduces the “I can’t visualise it” barrier. 
4. Use paid-social campaigns targeting lookalike audiences of past purchasers, plus retargeting for users who saved items or visited product pages.

Channel #3: Marketplaces and Aggregators

Not every business is on Google, and that’s why Marketplaces and product aggregators have become essential touchpoints for Australian furniture shoppers. Through this,  they help shoppers discover brands that they might not find in their local area, especially for niche or direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.

They also serve as credibility indicators. A brand’s presence on a trusted marketplace can immediately boost legitimacy, especially for emerging or lesser-known furniture labels. When Australians see real reviews, real photos, and fast delivery options displayed alongside your products, it reduces hesitation and builds trust faster than most traditional marketing channels.

According to Retail Asia, Australians slowly transition to using marketplaces to research products instead of search engines, where Amazon’s grew 27% year over year when it comes to product discovery usage. Meanwhile, Google saw a 7% decline in product discovery usage.

Furthermore, for many consumers, the marketplace acts as a one-stop hub where they can compare prices, check reviews, explore styles, and evaluate delivery options all in one place. This behaviour aligns with new research showing that 84% of Australian consumers regularly browse or shop on multiple marketplaces when searching for home and furniture products, making these platforms a critical part of the discovery and comparison journey.

Platforms like Temple & Webster, Brosa, Zanui, IKEA online, Catch, Kogan, and even Amazon Australia influence buying decisions long before shoppers visit a brand’s own website. These marketplaces succeed because they offer breadth of choice, competitive pricing, and transparent reviews—three factors that Australian shoppers value highly when investing in big-ticket items like sofas, dining tables, and storage pieces.

For furniture retailers, the implication is twofold:

1. Marketplaces are competitors: Consumers often compare your pricing and reviews on marketplaces against your own website. If your marketplace listings are stronger or cheaper, shoppers may bypass your direct site entirely.‍
2. But marketplaces are discovery channels: Make use it as visibility tools since they give you access to an audience far larger than your website alone. Exposure on Temple & Webster or Amazon AU can introduce your products to high-intent shoppers who are already in the research or comparison stage.

The two sides of coins, you have to make use of the marketplace to your full extent, so check the following. Firstly, whether you are in the marketplace. Secondly, audit your presence on key furniture marketplaces. Are you present under your own brand? Are your listings optimized (keywords, images, reviews)? Are you using marketplace data to feed back into your own website strategy, which are all essential in order for people to find you and purchase from you.

LTBS Expert Insight: 

1. You must treat marketplaces (e.g., Temple & Webster, Zanui, Brosa, Amazon AU) as both competitors and discovery channels.
2. Listing on a marketplace can boost visibility and traffic, especially for shoppers who begin comparing prices, reviews and delivery options.
3. Your brand website must offer something extra from its brand story, visuals, bundle offers, and customisation so you can convert outside the marketplace and maintain margin.

Channel #4: Brand Websites and Email

Your brand website is the digital home of your furniture business and they are part of the final decision-making point after consumers scroll through social media, search on Google, or compare products on marketplaces. 

In an online environment where shoppers cannot physically sit on a sofa or touch a timber finish, your website must compensate by delivering clarity, confidence, and a premium browsing experience.

Our mobile phones are what we can reach instantly, that means most searches are done through your mobile phone. Australian online shopping behaviour shows that over 60% of browsing sessions begin on mobile, even if purchase happens later on desktop, meaning your website must be mobile-first, fast-loading, and visually rich.

Additionally, consumers expect seamless navigation, accurate measurements, real-home photos, transparent delivery information, and trust signals, because these elements replace the in-store experience.

So, if you don’t have your own website, then what are you doing? You’re just adding damage to your brand’s credibility because a brand without its own home can’t build a connection with its consumers since you don’t have a home in the first place. 

In the furniture industry, trust is built when you have a home, which is your website—because it’s the place where you put your vision, mission, services, products, and most importantly, reviews that add value to their purchase-thinking session.

LTBS Expert Insight:

1. Treat your website as your brand’s home. It should be the most trustworthy, informative, and inspiring place your customers visit.
2. Make it a digital showroom. Use high-impact visuals, lifestyle photography, and 360° product views to recreate the in-store experience online.
3. Prioritise clarity and transparency. Include detailed measurements, materials, delivery timelines, return policies, and FAQs to remove hesitation.
4. Strengthen trust with social proof. Showcase reviews, UGC photos, customer stories, and real-room examples to validate quality and authenticity.
5. Build an intuitive and mobile-first UX. Your site must load fast, scroll smoothly, and convert easily.
6. Integrate website + email into a conversion loop. Capture emails with guides, quizzes, and pop-ups, then use automated flows to nurture and re-engage shoppers.
7. Focus on content depth. Buying guides, comparison pages, style quizzes, and material explanations help position your brand as the category expert.

In addition, email plays a crucial role in this ecosystem as it reinforces trust. With so much online noise, email is your direct line to consumers who have already shown interest. This is where brands can nurture leads, reduce abandoned carts, and re-engage high-intent shoppers with personalised messaging. 

LTBS Expert Insight: 

1. Browse-abandon emails: reminding visitors of products they viewed.
2. Cart-abandon emails: offering reminders or incentives to complete purchases.
3. Style recommendations: based on past browsing, quiz results, or wishlist items.
4. Post-purchase flows: care instructions, complementary product suggestions, or UGC requests.

Remember, a brand website and email strategy work hand in hand: the website captures attention and builds confidence, while email nurtures interest and brings consumers back when they’re ready to buy. 

When you are consistently using this seamless loop, gradually you’ll realize you’re building higher retention, stronger loyalty, and a more profitable customer lifecycle.

Channel #5: Reviews, Blogs & Online Communities

Before you make every purchase, you read and check first the reviews of the product especially in the furniture industry. If showrooms are no-shown, then you resort to reviews and check online communities for any reviews about the product. For furniture, where tactile feel, size, material and quality matter—trust and social proof are especially important.

Reviews act as modern word-of-mouth, that’s why Australians rely heavily on trust signals before making a decision. Furthermore, they consider reviews from other consumers more trustworthy than a product description provided by the company.

The online spaces influence not only purchase decisions but also brand perception. Every positive review, blog article, and community mention strengthens trust, while missing reviews or weak content can create doubt and even lead to worst case scenarios to abandon their purchase. 

So before Aussies spend $500-$3,000 on a furniture piece, they want reassurance—proof that the product fits their home, matches the photos, and lasts over time. So make sure to have reviews, blogs, and communities provide exactly that reassurance. For businesses, these platforms are not optional, they are essential drivers of credibility and conversion. 

LTBS Expert Insight:

1. Encourage verified customer reviews across your website, Google, and marketplaces to strengthen trust and reduce buyer hesitation.
2. ‍Showcase UGC and real-room photos to help shoppers visualise scale, quality, and styling in real homes.
3. ‍Participate in online communities (Reddit, Facebook Groups, Houzz) to understand consumer pain points and influence early-stage conversations.‍
4. Use insights from reviews and discussions to improve product pages, refine messaging, and address common concerns proactively.

The Rising Role of AI & Voice Search

Discovery is evolving through AI and voice search is reshaping how Australians discover your brand online. As search behaviour becomes more conversational and personalised, consumers increasingly rely on smart assistants and AI-driven recommendations to guide their shopping decisions. 

Instead of typing specific keywords, shoppers now ask natural-language questions like, “Hey Google, where can I buy a marble coffee table?” or “Hey Siri, show me modern dining sets for small apartments.” This shift is transforming both early-stage discovery and mid-journey comparison.

Smart assistants such as Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri are becoming common tools in Australian households. With nearly one-third of Australians using voice-activated technology daily, searching now starts in hands-free, convenience-driven moments—while cleaning, cooking, or planning home upgrades. This opens new opportunities for brands that optimise for conversational search, FAQs, and long-tail question-based keywords.

AI also plays a major role across visual platforms. Tools like Pinterest Lens, Google Lens, and TikTok’s visual search let consumers upload a photo of a style they love and instantly receive product suggestions. 

For furniture, where aesthetics matter, visual search accelerates discovery by offering similar items, colour palettes, and alternative designs in seconds. This technology influences not just browsing, but actual purchase decisions.

In marketplaces to stay ahead, brands must optimise their digital presence for AI interpretation. This includes implementing structured data, writing conversational content, and ensuring product listings are detailed enough for AI to surface them in recommendations and voice-led queries.

AI and voice search are no longer “future trends”, they are emerging discovery engines that shape how Australians find, compare, and buy furniture today. Brands that adapt early will capture high-intent shoppers at the exact moment they ask for help.

Conclusion: How Australians Really Shop for Furniture Online

Australian consumers no longer discover furniture in a single place—they discover it everywhere. What this means for furniture retailers is simple: you cannot rely on one channel alone. 

To win in today’s market, you must show up consistently across search engines, social media, marketplaces, your website, email flows, reviews, blogs, communities, and now AI-driven discovery tools. Each touchpoint plays a specific role from visibility, inspiration, comparison, reassurance, and conversion. When one is missing, you leave space for competitors to step in.

The brands that succeed are the ones that understand this journey and build a cohesive experience around it. They don’t just appear where consumers search, but they guide them. They don’t just show products, they tell the most important thing which is telling stories. They don’t just rely on ads, they build ecosystems that nurture, educate, inspire, and convert.

This is where LTBS stands out. We position your brand to be the first choice, not just another option. As your strategic growth partner in this digital space, because at the end of the day, Australians aren’t just buying furniture. They’re choosing brands that show up, stand out, and provide value at every step of their online journey.

Want to be the furniture brand Aussies find first and remember most? We at LTBS is here to make that happen.