Driving Online Traffic to Your Showroom: 5 Strategies Stolen From Ashley Furniture, Home Depot, IKEA & Others

For furniture retailers, offline sales typically account for 70-85% of total revenue, making foot traffic the lifeblood of the business. The challenge? Getting those online researchers through your showroom doors.

Industry giants like Ashley Furniture, IKEA, Home Depot, and Lowe’s have cracked this code with sophisticated online-to-offline (O2O) strategies that consistently convert browsers into store visitors. We broke down their playbooks and pulled out five strategies you can implement today.

Here are five proven ways furniture industry leaders use to convert digital traffic into showroom visits:

Expiring Offline Bonuses — Ashley Furniture creates urgency with limited-time offers redeemable only in physical stores.

Welcome Coupons — IKEA rewards new loyalty program members with perks like free coffee and in-store discounts.

Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (Click & Collect) — Kohl’s gets guaranteed visits and additional purchases with order pickup.

Geolocation-Based Mobile Offers — IKEA uses geofencing technology to send personalized push notifications when customers are near stores.

ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) Analytics — Home Depot and Lowe’s connect online marketing touchpoints with in-store sales, optimizing digital ad spend for maximum showroom impact.

Offer high-value coupons or bonuses online (via website, email, app, or direct mail) that can only be redeemed in-store, and make them time-limited to build urgency. This simple move drives online audiences into showrooms before the offer expires.

Ashley Furniture is a great example. They run limited-time, in-store-only discounts and bonuses that consistently bring foot traffic by playing on urgency and FOMO.

Pro Tip: Don’t bury the offer. Display it prominently on product pages and in catalogs with descriptions, banners, floating bars, or pop-ups. The clearer the in-store exclusivity, the stronger the pull to visit.

Design your new-customer welcome incentive to reward offline shopping. Discounts, free gifts with purchase, or perks like complimentary design consultations are all strong draws.

When joining IKEA Family, new members get a $20 coupon on their first in-store purchase and free coffee. Every time they return, they also get free tea or coffee in-store. While inexpensive, it creates a sense of care and gives shoppers one more reason to visit IKEA stores offline.

Add a Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) option — also called Click & Collect. It’s one of the most effective O2O tactics: customers order online, then walk into your store to pick up. Once they’re inside, they often buy more. In fact, 75% of shoppers who have tried BOPIS say they’re likely to make additional purchases.

Kohl’s does this well. Customers can buy online and choose free store pickup, guaranteeing foot traffic from digital buyers.

Pro Tip 1: Support BOPIS with proactive reminders, especially SMS, to prompt customers to collect orders before hold periods expire. Kohl’s sends "last day to pick up" texts to prevent uncollected orders.

Pro Tip 2: Place your pickup counter deeper in the store so customers naturally pass featured displays and seasonal promotions on their way.

Location-based technology lets you reach customers when they’re nearby and ready to shop. Use paid ads, mobile apps, and SMS to drop time-sensitive promotions that create urgency and drive foot traffic to your store.

IKEA uses geofencing in their mobile app to trigger push notifications when customers are close to a store. Even better, those offers are based on each person’s browsing and purchase history. Someone who looked at dining sets online might get a flash-sale alert on dining furniture the moment they’re near an IKEA.

And it’s not just IKEA — major brands like Starbucks, Uber, Sephora, and Burger King use geofencing to turn proximity into profit.

ROPO (Research Online, Purchase Offline) analysis tracks how digital marketing turns into real-world sales. It connects the dots between what customers do online – like browsing your site or clicking ads – and the purchases they eventually make in your store.

Big retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's rely on ROPO analytics to see which channels are worth the spend. Tools such as Google Ads Store Visit conversions and Facebook Offline Conversions let them measure how online ads and searches translate into store visits and sales.

For example, Home Depot runs a paid search ad for “patio furniture set.” If someone clicks, then later visits a Home Depot store, Google’s store-visit tracking can link the offline sale back to that ad. As a result, Home Depot knows how digital ads are influencing foot traffic and in-store revenue.

Ready to put O2O into action? Maestra’s all-in-one platform makes it easy to launch these strategies. With real-time CDP, email & SMS automation, on-site personalization, and loyalty programs — plus dedicated CSM support — you’ll have everything you need to turn online browsers into loyal in-store buyers.