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Creating a Stylish Niche with Housewares

Colorful displays of cookware, kitchen gadgets, and trendy appliances can be an engaging way to create a profitable niche and attract new customers. Often, Home Improvement Centers and hardware stores concentrate on making the paint department the focal point for style and inspiration. Paint is the department where customers can check out trendy colors, get decorating ideas, and talk to a salesperson about using the products correctly.

However, the housewares department is also an area ripe with opportunities. With a little imagination and lots of motivation, the department can become a booming niche business that attracts female customers, millennials, and new visitors. Selling housewares can have visual impact, and enable you to create displays that can keep your business looking fresh and relevant. Today’s housewares incorporate new color trends, contemporary designs, smart technology, and earth-friendly options. They continue to evolve based on consumer demand and popular culture.

Convenience Reigns Supreme
Consumers want appliances that save them time and make life easier. Two good examples are air fryers and hot pots. In some cases, brands such as NuWave and Cuisinart have combined multiple functions into a single product. They can cost less than buying several products and require less counter space to operate. In addition to being functional, housewares can also be stylish. From a retailer’s standpoint, brightly colored cookware in shades of red, green, orange, blue, and metallics are ideal for setting up eye-catching displays.


Making Coffee at Home
According to the National Coffee Association, 79 percent of coffee drinkers make coffee at home as opposed to purchasing it at a coffee shop. Innovative brewing stations make it simple and affordable for people to become their own baristas. Retailers who sell expresso machines, single-serve brewers, or other caffeine dispensers can promote them in creative ways, and generate add-on sales. Consider holding product demonstrations on the weekend, and giving away free cups of coffee. The coffee can represent different coffee-growing regions around the world to make the taste-testing fun, exciting, and educational. Of course, you’ll also want to sell the coffees so shoppers can take home their favorites. Anyone conducting demos should be prepared to answer questions about the coffee makers, and merchandise sold alongside them.

Cooking Smart
Starting dinner before arriving home, or monitoring activities related to food is more convenient than ever with the assistance of wi-fi enabled technology and home assistants. While many of us are familiar with precision cookers, there is a wide range of smart products on the market.

  • Digital thermostats plug into a phone or tablet to gauge food temperature and generate a graph and instant readout.
  • The smart egg tray lets you know how many eggs are left in the refrigerator when shopping at the grocery store.
  • Smart water filters have sensors that detect and analyze heavy metals, PH, and harmful or hazardous chemicals.

These small devices require little space to stock in your store. They cater to consumer’s desire to own products that use new technology connected to smartphones.


Cookware Goes Green
As society becomes more health-conscious, the cookware we use to prepare our foods is becoming “green” to reflect concerns about the individual’s well-being. For cookware manufacturers, the word “green” is defined as nonstick aluminum cookware that is free of two chemicals PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene). PFOA is the substance that adheres coatings to pans, while PTFE is the coating itself, better known by the brand name Teflon. PFOA is a carcinogen that has become the subject of heated debates. While stainless cookware is popular, customers still want the convenience of nonstick. Several green cookware options satisfy customer’s demand for quality nonstick products and also meet their standards for safety.

Housewife cooking rice with multicooker in the kitchen

Keeping Things Fresh
There are departments in your store, such as plumbing or electrical, where product assortments change slowly. However, that’s not the case with housewares. Customers expect to see new products and creative displays. Keeping the department looking fresh will motivate customers to shop and buy. Selling housewares is your chance to stand out from big box stores and to create a unique shopping experience that customers will happily discuss with their family and friends. 

One thought on “Creating a Stylish Niche with Housewares

  • Trudy Chuoke

    Instead of showing a Big Box line up of appliances- why not show a small store ideas – good article

    Reply

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