Furniture retailer DFS was founded in 1969, as specialists in sofas and soft furnishings. It has since extended its presence in the UK to around 115 DFS stores following its flotation in 2015. It is also active through the Dwell, Sofa Workshop and Sofology brands, having acquired the latter towards the end of 2017 to bolster its omnichannel credentials. In recent years, it has made its first international moves by expanding into Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. The DFS Group is embarking on a digitally led strategy to position the business for future growth. It is investing in its web platform and customer engagement tools, including new augmented reality visualisation tools and ‘chatbots’, while it is also leveraging the scale and expertise of the wider group to boost efficiency across all areas of the business. In addition to strong promotional and core DFS ranges, the retailer has exclusive partnerships with aspirational brands including House Beautiful, Joules and French Connection, to target different customer types.
Furniture group DFS expects profits be within the upper half of market forecasts despite Covid disruption and Brexit uncertainty.
Next, DFS and Selfridges are all gearing up for Boxing Day Sales in spite of Boris Johnson’s warnings to the public.
Under the new lockdown restrictions homewares retailers Dunelm and DFS stores are not counted as essential.
Creating demand through discovery is the only way to cut through the noise and win customer spend in an increasingly crowded ecommerce market.
DFS has fallen into the red in its preliminary results as sale declined, but boss Tim Stacey has stressed that the retailer’s performance has improved since stores reopened.
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