HomeGoods (finally) introduces e-comm

More than 820 stores and no website? In this economy? Yes, HomeGoods built its biz with decorative pillows and no e-comm operation. But this week, the retailer began selling its home decor on a website.

Parent company TJX has long preserved the HomeGoods brick-and-mortar treasure-hunt experience with well-stocked, seasonally shifting aisles. When TJX temporarily shuttered 4,500+ global stores in 2020, CEO Ernie Herrman made it clear that he didn’t want that to impact the company’s reliance on physical retail. “We will not look to e-commerce as our major leveraging point to get us through Covid,” he said last May.

Months later, in November, HomeGoods announced its forthcoming online storefront. TJX also owns discount chains like T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, both of which were slow to pivot online.

• T.J. Maxx started a website in 2013, and Marshalls embraced e-comm just a few years ago, in 2019.

On the hunt: Sales of furniture and home goods accounted for almost 12% of total e-commerce in the US, according to 2021 estimates. But Wayfair and Amazon have been behind most of those transactions, controlling 42% and 34% of all online furniture sales, respectively.

HomeGoods has to clean house and catch up to compete online.

“Balancing a frictionless shopping experience with the ‘right’ amount of friction [that] the consumer enjoys...scavenging for a deal or unique item...will be essential,” Kearney partner Timothy Derr told Retail Brew. “They need to start with a full assortment...The more they help the consumer piece together products to achieve their vision, the better.”—JG