How to adapt to Gen Z consumer trends in the home furnishing sector
A recent Forbes piece by Greg Petro landed with a thud in the home improvement and furnishings world. His argument: Gen Z is largely locked out of homeownership — not by choice, but by affordability — and therefore remains in rental living longer. They spend their money on experiences and personal wellbeing rather than mortgages and kitchen renovations. Wayfair, Lowe’s, XXXLutz: all showing strain. The nesting economy that boomed during the pandemic has gone quiet.
It’s a striking picture. But the more interesting question isn’t whether the data is right. It’s what it reveals about how retailers have been thinking about customers all along.
The Assumption Underneath the Problem
Most home improvement and furnishing retailers built their model around a life-stage assumption: “people buy houses, houses need filling; people come to us.” It’s a passive model dressed up as a strategy. It worked for decades because the assumption held: previous generations entered homeownership earlier and with far less financial friction. But now it doesn’t hold for the next generation of consumers at the age it used to.
And here is the uncomfortable truth: retailers who built on that assumption weren’t really serving customers. They were waiting for customers to arrive at a life stage that made them need what was already on the shelves.
That’s a very different thing from building a relationship.
What IKEA Got Right — and Why It Matters for Everyone
Petro points to IKEA as the relative bright spot, and it’s not hard to see why. IKEA didn’t wait for Gen Z to become homeowners. It met them where they were: in rented flats, student rooms, temporary spaces that still needed to feel like home. IKEA also benefits from its sustainability messaging and small‑space solutions, both of which strongly resonate with Gen Z. Affordable, flexible, modular — and crucially, aspirational even on a tight budget.
But the deeper reason IKEA holds up is something more fundamental than product range. IKEA treats the early relationship as worth having, even before the customer has money to spend properly. It invests in making a 23-year-old feel seen, even if that customer’s basket is modest. The bet is that the 23-year-old becomes the 35-year-old — and by then, the relationship is already built.
This is exactly the logic we can see in an issue around Amazon Prime: the relationship should precede the transaction, not follow it. The businesses that endure are those that make themselves relevant before the customer is fully ready to buy — not those that wait at the cash register.
The Real Opportunity Retailers Are Missing
There is a counterargument to Petro’s thesis worth taking seriously. Retail analyst Neil Saunders pointed out that using 2020-2021 as a baseline — pandemic years supercharged by stimulus spending — skews the picture badly. Measured against 2019, home improvement spending is actually up. Renters still furnish their apartments. Gen Z still decorates, organizes, and nests — just differently, and with different constraints.
Which means the opportunity isn’t gone — it has shifted to where Gen Z actually lives and spends. And retailers who can’t see it are looking in the wrong place.
Gen Z approaches the home category through the lens of self-expression and temporary but meaningful living, not long-term investment. They shop thrift, resale, and platform-first. They trust TikTok tutorials more than in-store staff. They want products that work for a rented space — peel-and-stick, modular, damage-free, removable. They are not anti-home. They are anti-permanence, at least for now.
The question for any retailer isn’t “how do we wait for Gen Z to buy houses?” It’s “how do we become the retailers they already trust when they eventually do?”
Three Things to Do Differently
These apply whether you’re in home furnishings or any other retail category facing a generational shift:
- Serve the life they have, not the life you assumed they’d have.
Audit your product range, your store layout, your digital experience, and your communications. Do they speak to a renter or only to an owner? Do they assume a budget that this generation doesn’t have? Renter-friendly, affordable, and flexible aren’t compromises — they’re the brief. - Build the relationship before the big purchase.
Content, community building, loyalty programs, inspiration — these are not marketing overhead. They are how you stay in the consideration set for the day the circumstances change. A customer who discovered you at 24, in a rented flat, will remember you at 34, in a house with a budget. If you disappeared from their life in the meantime, someone else won’t have. - Stop measuring only transactions.
Retailers who are struggling with Gen Z often can’t see the problem because they’re measuring basket size and conversion rate. Start measuring relationship depth: return visits, engagement, content interaction, early loyalty sign-ups. These are the leading indicators that tell you whether you’re building something or slowly becoming irrelevant.
The Broader Point
Adapting to Gen Z consumer trends represents a new challenge for the home furnishing industry. The Gen Z housing story is, at its core, a customer experience story. A generation that can’t afford to buy has found workarounds — resale, renting, making do — and the retailers who serve those workarounds well will earn the long-term relationship. Those who don’t, will find themselves surprised when that generation eventually does have purchasing power and spends it somewhere else.
The category isn’t the problem. The assumption is.
Learn more about how Linistry can elevate the Gen Z customer experience in furniture stores with its digital retail solutions.