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DFS Furniture Data Insights
Championing data-based decision making.
Read time: 4 mins Added: 16/07/25
From cashflow forecasting to competitor analysis, data has become the lifeblood of corporate decision making. By sourcing robust, large-scale and interrogable data sets, businesses can help drive informed and empirical decision making. Leading furniture manufacturer DFS is using Lloyds’ aggregated and anonymised data insights to underpin their understanding of the market – and be reactive and agile as a result.
Making sense of a complex landscape
The furniture retail landscape in the UK is becoming increasingly fragmented. Traditional specialist vendors, high street names, supermarkets and online retailers all now offer competitively priced sofas, beds and more.
For leading British furniture retailer DFS, this has prioritised the need to understand their place in the market, and the consumer trends behind it. “In certain sectors, it’s relatively easy to understand who your competitors are, and how you’re performing against them,” said Stuart Cave, Senior Data Insight Manager at DFS. “For us it’s not, so you have to be relatively creative in terms of who you benchmark to and how you measure your performance.”
As a result, DFS needed detailed insight into where, when and how customers were spending to understand the market and highlight opportunities to tailor their proposition as a result.
“In recent years, we’ve invested heavily in our technology and data functionality. While data has always been at the centre of our decision making, we were looking to introduce another robust data source to answer the question of how the group is doing,” said Stuart. “We look after aspects such as net promoter score, customer segmentation, footfall, econometrics and proprietary research. Within all of that, the main question we get asked is ‘why?’ – and this can be a hard question to answer.”
For Stuart, the main challenge was to source large-scale data to corroborate the existing data sources owned or used by DFS, while also offering an extra layer of granularity to gain a deeper understanding of consumer behaviour. This, said Stuart, can help turn data and research into a story that the business can understand and action.
Stuart Cave Senior Data Insight Manager at DFSOur aim is to use customer insights to bring the voice of the customer into operations.
From market share to marketing spend
In 2024, DFS turned to Lloyds to explore access to large-scale transactional data. Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence offers aggregated and anonymised spending insights from Lloyds Banking Group’s 28 million customers across the UK. As one of the largest custodians of data in the UK, Lloyds can provide a rich snapshot of consumer behaviour. This can help corporates better understand spending habits, identify opportunities, benchmark against competitors and gain an accurate view of trends within the market. “Our aim is to use customer insights to bring the voice of the customer into operations,” explained Stuart.
For DFS, the first year of using Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence has been centred around gaining key strategic intelligence. “We’ve been addressing the strategic, ultimate question of our market share. We’re now in a position where we’ve answered that with the help of Lloyds’ data, and we’ve developed a good narrative with the business as a result.”
The next 12 months will focus on using the data to assess the performance of different brands within the Group’s portfolio, namely DFS and Sofology. Granular spending data can offer insight into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, product propositions and brand appeal, while also helping to inform the next steps for each of the brands. Stuart believes that access to these insights could help reduce wastage in terms of marketing spend by making campaigns more specific, efficient and intelligent.
Insights can also help measure the impact of each brand in a particular location, also informing DFS’s approach to coverage. “The data has allowed us to identify potential opportunities, look at where these opportunities are, and decide whether we need to address our store proposition or marketing approach within these areas to make sure we can take market share when it’s potentially available,” said Stuart.
Stuart Cave Senior Data Insight Manager at DFSThere aren’t any downsides – it’s not expensive, the service is great, and the data has both breadth and low latency.
Powering internal conversations
Using the data has helped the DFS team share concrete information about their customer base and performance with internal stakeholders. “The board uses the data and there’s reassurance in the fact that it has come from Lloyds as a large bank,” commented Stuart. “We believe that Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence is best in class in terms of depth, quality and frequency, backed up by very robust sample sizes.”
The relationship with the data experts working within Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence has been positive and productive, according to Stuart. “Whenever we’ve needed anything, the response has been prompt and it has been dealt with quickly,” he said. “The Lloyds team is also able to present the data with a low level of latency. They give us the month’s data the week after it ends, which means we can be reactive in the market.” The relationship has also added value, with the team suggesting other questions to explore that could yield additional results.
“DFS has been a cornerstone of the British retail environment for over five decades, and it is a pleasure to support them in understanding and analysing the market in which they operate,” said Enrique del Rio Mancebon, Managing Director, Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence. “Our data enables brands to make decisions built on the solid foundations of informed, concrete insight.”
Enrique del Rio Mancebon Managing Director, Lloyds Bank Market IntelligenceOur data enables brands to make decisions built on the solid foundations of informed, concrete insight.
Staying one step ahead
The DFS team is now looking to activate the data, integrate it into their marketing strategy, and experiment with new and innovative use cases. For Stuart, the relationship with Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence is likely to add more value as it continues. “There aren’t any downsides – it’s not expensive, the service is great, and the data has both breadth and low latency. It’s presented in a way that is actionable. It has certainly been paid back very quickly for us.”
With access to anonymised and aggregated spending data from 28 million customers, Lloyds Bank Market Intelligence offers unique snapshots into the UK consumer spending landscape. Our data can reveal both macro- and micro-level spending trends to help businesses across a wide range of sectors plan their next move. “We were encouraged by the promise of what the data could do – and so far, it’s delivered on that,” said Stuart. “It’s provided a level of insight that has really helped our business. It’s answering strategic questions for us, and I think it will be operationally important for us moving forward.”
To learn more about how our data can support your business, please get in touch with our team at marketintelligence@lloydsbanking.com.