A customer walks into your store, spends an hour with a sales associate, finds the perfect living room set — then hesitates at the $4,200 total. They say they’ll come back. Most of them don’t. Consumer financing exists to close that gap.

The Sale You Don’t Know You’re Losing

This scenario plays out in furniture stores every day, and most retailers never quantify how much revenue it costs them. The customer was ready to buy. They wanted the product. The only thing that stopped them was the payment method.

When a customer can break a major purchase into manageable monthly payments — with a quick application and an approval that happens while they’re still standing in the showroom — the barrier disappears. The sale closes. The customer gets what they want. The retailer gets the revenue.

The difference between retailers who treat financing as a core part of the sales process and retailers who treat it as an afterthought is measurable and significant.

Why Financing Matters More in Furniture Than Almost Any Other Category

Furniture is a high-ticket, low-frequency purchase. The average customer buys furniture every seven to ten years. When they do, the ticket is often one of the largest retail purchases they’ll make outside of a car or a home.

Most customers don’t budget for furniture the way they budget for groceries or clothing. It’s a discretionary purchase that competes with other major expenses. Even customers who can afford to pay in full may prefer not to, especially when interest-free or low-interest options make it possible to spread the cost over 12, 24, or 36 months.

A customer who was going to buy just a sofa might add the matching loveseat and coffee table when the monthly payment stays manageable. The retailers who understand this train their sales teams to present financing as a natural part of the conversation, not as a last resort.

The Problem with Disconnected Financing

Having financing available and having financing integrated into your sales workflow are two very different things.

Many furniture retailers offer financing through one or more providers, but the process lives outside their point of sale system. The associate writes up the order in the ERP, then walks the customer to a separate terminal to run the credit application. If declined by one provider, starting with a second means beginning the process over.

Integrated Financing Changes Everything

The credit application, approval, and payment terms become part of the same transaction the associate is already building. The customer applies from within the same workflow. The approval happens without leaving the screen. Everything reconciles because it was never separated in the first place.

STORIS integrates with major financing providers including Synchrony, LendPro, and Affirm directly within the point of sale workflow. Credit applications, approvals, and payment plans are all managed inside the same system your team uses to write orders and manage customer accounts.

Every extra step, every screen switch, every moment of awkwardness while the associate fumbles between systems is an opportunity for the customer to reconsider.

Mark Braun Head of Product Management & Engineering

The Finance Waterfall: Why One Provider Isn’t Enough

Not every customer qualifies with every financing provider. A customer who gets declined by one lender might be approved by another with different underwriting criteria. If your store only offers a single financing option, a declined application often means a lost sale.

A finance waterfall solves this. When a customer’s application is declined by the primary provider, the system automatically routes it to a secondary — and sometimes tertiary — provider without the customer needing to fill out another application. The process is seamless from the customer’s perspective.

Multi-Tier Approval Flow

One application, multiple providers, seamless routing

Frictionless Customer Journey

Applied once, answered once — regardless of routing

Retailers who offer multiple financing tiers through a waterfall consistently approve more customers and close more sales than retailers who rely on a single provider.

How Financing Impacts the Numbers

The financial case for integrated consumer financing is straightforward:

• Higher close rates. Customers offered financing at the point of sale are more likely to complete the purchase than those told to “think about it.”
• Larger average orders. When the conversation shifts from total price to monthly payment, customers add protection plans, delivery services, and complementary pieces.
• Fewer abandoned sales. The customer who walks out to “think about it” often wanted to buy but couldn’t justify the lump sum.
• Competitive differentiation. For smaller retailers competing against larger chains, integrated financing levels the playing field.

Getting Started

If you’re not currently offering consumer financing, the first step is evaluating which providers serve your market and your customer base. Synchrony, LendPro, and Affirm are among the most common in furniture retail, but the right mix depends on your customer demographics.

If you already offer financing but the process lives outside your ERP, the priority is integration. The closer financing gets to the point of sale, the more your team will use it and the more customers will take advantage of it.

In furniture retail, financing isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a revenue tool. The retailers who treat it that way close more sales, build larger orders, and give their customers a better experience at the most critical moment of the transaction.