A “year of experimentation”: Temple & Webster CEO talks TikTok and FY24

Pureplay online furniture retailer Temple & Webster has an ambitious five-year growth plan, and TikTok could be the key to making it happen.

To become a household name, Temple & Webster is focussing its social commerce efforts on Instagram while keeping an eye on the up-and-coming markets that TikTok could help it unlock.

Small screen; major ROI

The launch of TikTok Shop in Australia, rumoured to be coming at the end of 2024, is set to shake up the social commerce scene, and Temple & Webster is ready for it. 

The online furniture and homewares retailer, which hit an all-time high of 1.1 million active customers in FY24, will “no doubt have integration with TikTok shopping at the right time,” Mark Coulter, Temple & Webster CEO told Inside Retail.

“We’ve got a clear path to be a much bigger business within Australia, all the execution pieces are there,” he said.

“Social commerce is only going to become bigger and a more important part of the [marketing] mix.” 

Playing in the category of furniture and homewares, the brand has identified older Gen Zs and Millennials as the driving force of the business.

“You’re out of your Ikea years, and investing a bit more in homewares,” Coulter said.

As Coulter noted, the categories that tend to do well on TikTok are cosmetics and fashion, “but that’s not to say they’re not looking at homewares and our impulse categories like decor, sheets and softs”.

Currently, the brand’s main social media channel is Instagram, but it does have a TikTok account. The retailer follows just shy of 40 accounts and has over 7,000 followers and 130,000 likes on its abundant video library.

“TikTok is a small channel for us, you’ll see us putting more effort into Instagram,” Coulter said.

This strategy is based on that platform’s current consumer demographic reach, but Coulter said “that will change over time”.

“I’m not underplaying Tiktok, but right now, Instagram is our focus,” he said.

TikTok Shop

Furniture is a tricky category to sell via social commerce due to the planned nature of larger purchases, with multiple people often involved in the decision-making process.

“Social commerce in general skews more towards the impulse categories. You see a video and go, that’s a cool product, I’ll impulse buy,” Coulter said.

Given the price point of Temple & Webster’s furniture, Coulter said he sees a bigger opportunity to market the company’s soft furnishings and decor through TikTok and other social media platforms:  “In the decor and homeware stuff, we can see the role of social,” he said.

The cost of growth

Aside from social commerce, Temple & Webster is also investing in TV commercials. Back in February, Coulter told Inside Retail that the purpose of its TV campaign was to “let people know about our great proposition”.

“FY24 is a year of experimentation, we’re going into channels at scale, where we haven’t really been before,” Coulter said.

“We’re trying to get a sense of what the ROIs and the customer acquisition costs (CAC) are. Our goal is to get all channels as a mini mix to a 12-month payback. Essentially, ROI will be how much margin we make from those customers in their first year, and the goal is for that to cover the marketing costs,” he added.

The business’s first-order profitability for its digital channels ROI has been determined and deemed a success, whilst the new marketing channels are showing good early progress, but “we’re not quite there yet,” Coulter said.

“We’re about to redo the campaigns based on upweighting and changing campaign mix, which means we should get to our target,” he added.

“It’s about getting the Temple & Webster name out there, showing customers a great range, amazing value, and making sure we’re in the decision set for customers.”

Going broad

Becoming the go-to destination for furniture and homewares and increasingly home improvement is all part of Temple & Webster’s five-year plan.

“In five years Temple & Webster will be a household name,” Coulter said. “When Australian customers are thinking home, they’ll start with Temple & Webster.” 

To achieve this, he is banking on the retailer’s vast selection of products and optimised delivery model that meets consumers’ style and budget preferences.

Looking to the future, Coulter said that he “would love for Temple & Webster to be a great Aussie success story, employing lots of people, and a beloved brand of Australian customers – a friend helping them make their homes more beautiful – and one that is talked about in business circles, as great executors that have done a great job.”

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