The Marketing Services on the Furniture Market

The distribution of furniture has seen profound changes leading to accelerations of the dynamics of the competition environment, these changes being influenced, among other things, by the diversification of offer comprising new services. Today it seems essential to consider the distribution of furniture as an “industry that creates utility”. Indeed, the consumer is analyzed not only as a function of product characteristics, but as a set of utilities and advantages that distributions propose in their strategies of associated services. The services appear, in the same time, as variables which are applied by the distributor in his strategy to differentiate themselves and as utilities associated to the product, utilities which the consumer - as “problem-solver” - integrates in his decision making process. The consumer buys not just a simple product (furniture), but a global product which includes a sum of jointed attributes and utilities (proximity, product line, point of sale concept, information, warranty, etc.). This paper analyzes the services offer from the distribution of furniture as a method to solve the problems of furniture buyer. From this perspective the paper takes into consideration the various profiles of buying behavior, makes a critical analysis of the structure of services involved, defines a new structure of services based on the phases of buying behavior process.