Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
Showroom visit or catalogue: which one is losing you furniture orders?
A three-count sheet that shows whether your catalogue or your showroom is where furniture enquiries drop out, how to read it against your own past months, and what to do with a buyer who will not visit.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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Your catalogue went out on Saturday with a couple who liked the sofa, and you never saw them again. Was it the book, or was it you? You cannot tell by looking at the book. Redesigning it will not tell you either. The answer sits in your own enquiries, in three counts you can make with a pen this afternoon. For many sellers the catalogue brings a buyer to the showroom and the showroom closes the order, so the three counts show which of the two is leaking.
The three counts
Pick the last thirty people who asked for your catalogue, price list or album, by phone, walk-in or WhatsApp. Go through your phone and notebook and fill in this sheet with your own numbers:
| Count | How to get it | Your number |
|---|---|---|
| A. Got a catalogue or album | The thirty you picked | 30 |
| B. Visited the showroom | Of the thirty, those who came in | ___ |
| C. Ordered | Of those who visited, those who paid an advance | ___ |
| D. Ordered without visiting | Of the thirty, those who paid with no visit | ___ |
Do not trust memory for B and C. If your notes do not say, mark the person "unknown" and leave them out of both counts.
Reading the sheet
Two ratios matter: B against A, and C against B. Compare them with your own earlier months rather than with any figure from outside, because every shop's ratios differ.
If B is far smaller than A, the catalogue is doing its job of interesting people, but nobody is being invited in. The weakness is your reply. Look at how long you took to answer, and whether you suggested a day. "Do visit us" gives a buyer nothing to act on. "Tuesday forenoon is a good time, the polish team is in and I will keep the three sofas you liked ready" does.
If C is far smaller than B, the visit is the problem. People come, touch the arm of the sofa and leave. Look at what happens on your floor: whether anyone greets them, whether the finishes they asked about are on display, and whether you took a name and number before they left. A visit with no follow-up wastes the most useful conversation you will have, because the real budget, the real room and the real deadline come out in ten minutes of talk.
If D is large, a good share of your buyers do not need the floor at all. They are standard-size, repeat or outstation buyers, and you can put the money into the pack and a quick reply instead.
What a catalogue cannot do
It cannot settle the finish. Teak that looks honey-coloured in a photograph can look orange under a tube light, and a PU polish looks flat on a phone screen. Buyers know this, and many decide to come and see it before they have read half the book. So build the catalogue to do three plain things: show sizes, give a starting price, and give a reason to visit. A line saying "see this finish in the showroom, it looks different from the photograph" is honest, and it brings people in.
It cannot tell you who is deciding either. In the showroom, one person may ask about the lighter wood, another about storage, and a third sit down and say the seat is too low. Listen for who the others turn to, because that is whose approval you need.
A worked case: a sofa maker in Jabalpur
The figures below are made up, to show how to read the sheet. A sofa and bed maker in Jabalpur filled in the sheet and found this: of thirty who took the album, nine visited and four ordered, and two others ordered on a video call without visiting.
The maker's notes from earlier months showed about fourteen visits out of thirty, so nine was low for that shop, not low by any outside standard. Reading the log, the maker saw that most albums had been sent by WhatsApp with no message beyond "here is our catalogue", and that people replied with a thumbs-up and went silent. Four of nine ordering matched the earlier months, so the floor was not the first thing to suspect.
So the floor was left alone and what was sent changed. Each album now went with a question about the one sofa the buyer had lingered on, and a named day for seeing the fabric swatches in the showroom. The album was cut from forty-odd sofas to the twelve the maker most wanted to sell, each with size, frame wood, fabric options and a starting price. Nothing about the visit changed. On the next thirty albums, visits rose from nine to eleven, not the jump hoped for, and nobody could say whether the twelve-sofa album or the named day did it. Reprinting the short album cost about ₹6,000, and the lift in visits was small for the effort. The maker, the shop and the figures are invented.
When the showroom is the wrong place
A visit is a poor use of a buyer's time when the item is a standard size, a repeat purchase or a low-cost piece. It is also poor when your floor is small and shows two sofas, because a buyer who travels forty minutes to see them will compare you with the big shop passed on the way.
If most of your sales are custom or high value, put your effort into the floor and the follow-up. If most go to contractors and dealers for standard pieces, put it into the pack and the speed of the reply. For a buyer in another city, replace the touch: post a small finish card, hold a video call with the camera on the edge of the real piece, and show the back and the underside. Settle returns before any advance is paid.
Do the count before you change anything
Fill in the sheet first. Do not reprint a single page before that. If the sheet shows people not visiting, the leak is in your reply, which lead response and follow-up deals with. Other furniture buyers and how they decide are covered on the furniture and wood products page. If you would like help reading your own numbers, tell us what you need.
