Furniture outlet retailer Joseph James Furniture Outlet LLP has announced the re-launch of its YouTube channel alongside other significant investments as it continues to grow.
The outlet has invested within its digital content strategy to engage with customers and show a “raw” insight into the business and its operations.
This includes producing more content in video form, following a successful period last year. Furthermore, the company is close to expanding into a new 60,000sqft showroom, which will be in addition to its 20,000sqft Stretford space.
Commenting on the recent investments, which also includes a full refurbishment project at its Stretford location, Joseph Shenton, Owner at Joseph James Furniture Outlet LLP, said: “Firstly, we see more physical locations as essential to our growth and we’re excited about the new showroom. We are close to signing the location off, so we can’t reveal too much.
“What we can talk about is our recent re-launch of our YouTube channel with much more content to follow. We will be producing weekly episodes and we see the YouTube channel as a way to bridge the trust gap with online customers. You get a real and raw look at our operations and founders. We don’t use this to push product on customers, rather we hope they engage with our business activities and if they, or someone they know, are in the market for furniture, they will choose us. It also helps bring some clarity to the ‘outlet’ sector of the furniture industry, which can typically be quite confusing to customers.”
The business shot 10 episodes last summer and following a positive reaction, they have now unveiled its latest episode.
“We noticed last year that those who watched the videos, loved them and converted well,” Joseph said. “However, we struggled to get the viewing figures high enough to justify the cost of producing the content. This year, we have a new strategy to garner views on the channel. Primarily, this is based upon using shorter form video platforms including TikTok, Instagram Reels and LinkedIn, which will push views to our YouTube channel.”
On other investments, the company is nearing the completion on a £100,000 refurbishing project at its Stretford showroom, as Joseph continued: “We are investing in new equipment to display furniture in our showroom in order to maximise space. Some of these are existing products and some we have designed and fabricated ourselves, although we can’t reveal much more as it is undergoing a patent application.”
Joseph added that recent trade has picked up despite the last couple of months being “quieter than usual”, but did reveal that they have seen a significant increase in demand for recliners. “We have seen customers start to revert to comfort more, with style being less of a focus. As a sofa lover, which I sadly am, this is frustrating but understandable. Recliners are booming at the moment for us.
“Business has been good and we are constantly looking at ways to improve. As younger (22) founders in the industry, we have a focus on growth and remained determined to be the first nationally recognised outlet.
“We hope to get some good feedback from within the industry to our YouTube videos. Criticism and critiques are greatly welcome as I would love to know how we could become more efficient. I expect when our new showroom deal is signed, there will be a fair amount of publicity around it as it is a well-recognised and prominent building within Stockport.”
