What's a furniture subscription?

Changing the way we shop

Brits as a nation are falling in love with subscription services, with 7 out of 10 households already subscribed to an average 7 different contracts. But let’s face it, when thinking about subscriptions, furniture is not exactly the first thing that springs to mind.

So, let’s start with the items we do tend to subscribe to.

At the top you find entertainment subscriptions (that would be things like your Amazon Prime and Netflix). Closely followed by more physical products that are delivered to your home on a set schedule like food, technology and beauty products.

A recent UK survey showed that our primary motivation for subscription services is to try something new and treat ourselves. Another study cited exclusive content and convenience as our key reasons, while a majority of people also felt that the discovery of new brands was important too.

I’m personally a big fan of how convenient subscriptions are, so in my household everything from coffee to laundry detergent and food are bought in this way. Something I like about it is being able to support smaller, innovative companies. When you subscribe to items you have a bit more time to research the quality, understand the pricing, read reviews, learn about the sustainability approach and then make a conscious decision to support them month after month.

The sharing economy

Another closely related area to subscriptions, in that you often pay something monthly or get access to something in a more flexible way, is rentals. You might have come across companies like Rent the Runway, who specialise on renting out designer clothes. Another example of how rental is being used to power the sharing economy would be the numerous car sharing options that now exist on the market.

So, moving back to furniture subscriptions, what’s it all about?

First of all, we are generally not talking about shipping you a new sofa every month – that would be slightly inconvenient for everyone.

But say after 9 months you decided that the sofa you subscribed to wasn’t for you anymore, maybe you moved to a bigger place that allows space for a 3-seater instead of a 2-seater, a furniture subscription would allow you to do just that. It basically gives you flexibility to choose how and when to furnish your home.

Is it the same as renting furniture?

Traditional furniture rentals have been great for anyone who needs furniture for a shorter term, for example if you are an expat from another country in need of furniture in London for a limited amount of time. Generally, a furniture subscription also allows you to do just that (at Zenkki we call it ‘subscribe-to-flex’) so yes, it fills the same purpose as a furniture rental as you can keep the furniture for 3-12 months and then have the items picked up at the end.

The main difference is that a furniture subscription is a lot more than that. It is suitable not only for people who need to rent furniture for a shorter time, but also people who just want to keep their options open and are looking for a more sustainable and simple way to access high-quality furniture.

Subscribe-to-own, full furniture freedom

A furniture subscription will allow you to pay a low monthly fee for your furniture and at any point in time choose to buy the item you subscribed to. The best kind of subscription would also allow you to only pay what’s left of the retail price, so all the payments you’ve already made count towards the purchase. 

It basically allows you to test an item without the big up-front cost, while still never paying more if you do decide to buy it in the end.

For many people it means being able to test brands and quality items that they otherwise wouldn’t have come across or been able to purchase. Designer items, quirky items and sustainable items, for example this beautiful desk by etc.etc. Studio which won a Reddot award in 2014 or this fabulous HÅG Capisco Puls desk chair.

We’ll talk more about circularity and how subscribing to furniture also helps extend the life of items in a later post. Do feel free to read more about how it works to own furniture through Zenkki here and we would love it if you wanted to follow us on our social media channels to keep up to date with sustainable living.