For many people, the corona lockdown has forced a kind of retreat into the private sphere: People are increasingly sitting at home. The word "cocooning" was invented for this purpose, but advertising would rather not associate it with negatively charged terms such as sealing off and unification. "Cocooning", i.e. unification in a cosy home, is the word of the hour.
In April and May the furniture business grew by 25 percent - Germans sat at home and made themselves more comfortable and beautiful. And sales are still rising.
The cocooning phenomenon is also evident in the online retailer otto.de. In comparison with the previous year, sales of furniture, gardening and sports equipment "have risen by a clear double-digit percentage, in some sub-ranges even by a triple-digit percentage", says Ackermann happily. Customers are spending significantly more money on furnishing their home and garden, but also on their well-being, than before the outbreak of the Corona pandemic.
While consumer reticence has generally tended to break out, the furnishing sector has recently been experiencing an unexpected boom.
The home is becoming a "safe haven", according to a study. It is a "wake-up call for companies" that have to adjust to this new demand if they want to profit from this boom.
However, not all furniture and decoration retailers benefited from the Corona boom in the same way. "As a result of the lockdown and the restriction of the physical shopping experience, stationary retailers are recording sales declines of 30 to 40 percent," trade expert Täuber concludes. "Online furniture retailers, on the other hand, were able to achieve growth of up to 25 percent in spring alone - in relation to the previous year".
According to experts, cocooning will be just as permanent as the ever-increasing trend towards online trade. The trend towards spending more leisure time in one's own four walls is intensifying. Companies that use creative strategies to facilitate and enhance the retreat into the private sphere will be among the winners in the future.
The experts in management consultancy even speak of a "decade of the home", which was heralded by the pandemic.
