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Money The Homestore Lifestyle: The Price of Home Design
The last year has made our home environment more important than ever. When you’re spending more time in your home you can’t help but want to change and improve it, and sometimes, the extra candles simply won’t do.
We looked at some of the most popular home stores in the US, judged by social media and website traffic data, and analyzed a set list of home items. For each item we used the ‘Most popular’ filters on each website to get the price data for the items with the highest interest from consumers. The full list of items are shown in the methodology below.
Here’s what it costs to live the lifestyle of the most popular home stores in the country.
Key findings:
- Target was found to offer the most affordable homestore goods totaling $2,438 for our analyzed household essentials.
- It will cost you over $17,700 to live the Pottery Barn lifestyle, over 6 times the price of Pottery Barn equivalents.
- Crate & Barrel had the most expensive popular items for the bathroom and hallway ($467 and $1,028 respectively).
- AllModern had the most expensive popular items for the kitchen ($303).
- Although Target was the most affordable overall, IKEA had the least expensive office goods ($121), kitchen essentials ($22), and living room products ($1,044).
Home Store Cost Comparison
Here you can see the full breakdown of the items we analyzed and the costs associated with each room of the house we looked at. For the full list of products considered please see the methodology below.
| Bedroom | Office | Bathroom | Hallway | Kitchen | Living Room | Brand Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Store Pottery Barn | Bedroom$6,510.00 | Office$2,966.00 | Bathroom$416.00 | Hallway$228.00 | Kitchen$107.96 | Living Room$7,484.50 | Brand Total$17,712.46 |
| Store Crate & Barrel | Bedroom$4,776.89 | Office$2,096.99 | Bathroom$467.70 | Hallway$1,028.00 | Kitchen$140.75 | Living Room$6,198.90 | Brand Total$14,709.23 |
| Store World Market | Bedroom$3,289.90 | Office$639.96 | Bathroom$259.93 | Hallway$438.99 | Kitchen$71.89 | Living Room$2,849.89 | Brand Total$7,550.56 |
| Store AllModern | Bedroom$2,227.00 | Office$787.00 | Bathroom$267.00 | Hallway$357.00 | Kitchen$160.00 | Living Room$3,530.00 | Brand Total$7,328.00 |
| Store Wayfair | Bedroom$1,410.03 | Office$746.97 | Bathroom$196.96 | Hallway$100.33 | Kitchen$174.50 | Living Room$1,437.49 | Brand Total$4,066.28 |
| Store Bed Bath and Beyond | Bedroom$731.91 | Office$371.96 | Bathroom$111.24 | Hallway$109.98 | Kitchen$61.96 | Living Room$2,108.33 | Brand Total$3,495.38 |
| Store IKEA (USA) | Bedroom$1,247.97 | Office$120.98 | Bathroom$41.93 | Hallway$108.99 | Kitchen$21.70 | Living Room$1,043.96 | Brand Total$2,585.53 |
| Store Target | Bedroom$541.96 | Office$171.00 | Bathroom$30.73 | Hallway$41.99 | Kitchen$34.17 | Living Room$1,618.95 | Brand Total$2,438.80 |
Pottery Barn Prices
Out of our analyzed brands, Pottery Barn has the second highest following on Instagram, so is incredibly popular, but it was found to be the most expensive store to buy your home goods from based on our set list of items (full list available in methodology).
They weren’t the most expensive in all of our analyzed categories, however. Pottery Barn was only the most expensive in terms of costs for the bedroom ($6,510), the office ($2,966), and the living room ($7,485).
Crate & Barrel Prices
The second most expensive store was Crate & Barrel, and their prices boomed for the bathroom ($468) and the hallway ($1,028). Compared to Pottery Barn, the hallway items cost 4.5 times more than Pottery Barn’s most popular equivalent items.
In particular, Crate & Barrel’s most popular closet was just under $2,000, around $700 more expensive than the nearest priced item from Pottery Barn. In the hallway, the price is increased due to the brand’s very popular entryway bench ($799) which acts as an expensive, yet stylish, way to store shoes.
Cost Plus World Market Prices
The third-most-expensive store we analyzed was World Market. From the most popular items, World Market has the third highest costs in the bedroom ($3,290) behind Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel.
Their higher cost could come from their approach to find ‘unique artisan goods and handicrafts’ as discussed in their story online. World Market was found to have the second highest, most popular queen-size bed from our analysis at $1,300, as its customers have a preference for a large upholstered headboard.
AllModern Prices
Out of the stores we analyzed, AllModern has the fewest followers on Instagram but is growing rapidly. Their estimated online traffic is about 1 million monthly visitors behind Wayfair, who is actually the owner of AllModern.
AllModern was not the most expensive in any category but did have some high-priced popular items like the third most expensive media center ($800). The brand prides itself on ‘fast and free shipping’ alongside an ethos focused on ‘finding the latest trends in contemporary decor’. Their higher price seems to reflect their on-trend styles and convenience for deliveries.
Wayfair Prices
AllModern’s parent company, Wayfair, has the largest Facebook presence (7.8m likes) in our analysis and is the fourth cheapest home store in our list. Interestingly, Wayfair actually has the highest cost for the kitchen essentials we analyzed at $175, despite its cheaper prices across the board.
Bed Bath & Beyond Prices
Making it into the top three cheapest stores, Bed Bath & Beyond came in at just under $4,000 for the essentials we analyzed. Despite being among the top three most affordable home stores, the store was not the lowest price in any specific category.
The store’s bedroom costs ($732) were the second most affordable behind Target and their bathroom pricing ($111) was the third cheapest behind IKEA and Target respectively.
IKEA Prices
Just behind Target, IKEA has the second highest estimated website traffic, and the second highest Facebook following behind Wayfair, it’s easily one of the most popular home brands in the country.
In terms of cost, there wasn’t much of a price difference between IKEA and Target. In fact, Target is only cheaper than the Swedish giant by $147. Despite this, IKEA was found to offer the cheapest goods for the office ($121), the kitchen ($22), and the living room ($1,044).
Target Prices
It turns out we should all be designing our home with Target in mind if we are working on a tight budget. The store’s overall cost for our analyzed essentials came to $2,438, over 626% less than Pottery Barn’s most popular equivalents.
It should be noted that the products from one store will not be identical to another’s, and are likely not made from the same materials. But if you’re looking at saving money, Target is your best bet to get some home essentials for cheaper.
Lauren Bringle, an Accredited Financial Counselor here at Self Financial, had the following tips for buying items for your home on a budget:
- Second-hand first: Facebook marketplace and sites like Craigslist are a gold mine for pre-loved furniture and homeware. Just be sure to get lots of photos from the seller to see the quality of the items before purchasing.
- Last year’s trends: Homeware that was at the peak of the season last year is going to cost less now, especially for post-season holiday decor. Be on the look out for items on sale or clearance at the end of the season.
- Online deals: If shopping online, look for affiliate discount codes that are often shared through customer referrals and social media influencers. Many brands offer 10-15% discounts for first-time buyers or for email signup. To avoid the temptation of future purchases from marketing newsletters, you can simply unsubscribe from the email once you’ve got your items.
Methodology
Pricing information was gathered on May 13, 2021 for a set list of home essentials from eight of the top home stores in the US. For each item we used the ‘Most popular’ filters on the websites to get the price data for the items with the highest interest from consumers.
TJ Maxx and Marshalls were originally included in the analysis but had to be removed from the final dataset as they lacked many items other stores had making it impossible to create a comparison. Popular stores were chosen based on their estimated website traffic and social media metrics to understand how in demand they were to American consumers.
‘Most popular’ items analyzed:
The following items were analyzed in each brand using the exact wording below to bring up relevant search results. The ‘Most popular’ filter was then applied. Some items were not analyzed if they did not appear on every website (e.g shower caddy, shoe tray, drawer organizer).
Bedroom:
- Queen bed sheets (with pillow sheets)
- Queen bed frame
- Curtains (1 pair)
- Pillows (2)
- Wall mirror
- Closet
- Storage boxes (3)
- Nightstand
- Four-drawer chest
Office:
- Desk
- Desk chair
- Three-tier shelf
- Floor lamp
Bathroom:
- Bathroom mirror
- Shower curtain
- Soap dish
- Bath rug
- Regular size towel (2)
- Hand towel
Hallway:
- Two-tier shoe rack
- Storage bench (3 cubes/1m)
Kitchen:
- Dinner plates (4)
- Mugs (4)
- Bowls (2)
- Cutlery set
- Dish rack
Living room:
- Wall shelf
- Two-seater couch
- Singular armchair
- Media center
- Indoor plant pot (1)
- Dining table
- Dining chairs (4)
- Coffee table
