creasingly out of touch. However, this also leaves space for a new guard of design-led furniture and homewares retailers to meet consumers where they are, by offering products that make a rental a home. One of the brands seeking to capture this opportunity is Eva, which is making a name for itself with its innovative and made-to-last products. Eva is at the forefront of designing functional and versatile pieces that don’t compromise on personal style, appealing to a new generation of modern renters. Now the brand is seizing the moment with its move into bricks-and-mortar, becoming a competitive omnichannel retailer in Australia’s $12 billion furniture and homewares category. No place like home The Great Australian Dream is not dead, but it’s not in line with reality for many consumers. In a survey conducted by Mortgage Choice, only 4 per cent of Gen Z respondents said they did not face any hurdles on their journey to buying a home, compared with 34 per cent of millennials, 57 per cent of Gen X, and 70 per cent of baby boomers. “For many, homeownership, while still a priority, is being compromised with lifestyle, flexibility and location values,” Mark McCrindle, founder of McCrindle Media, told Inside Retail. This isn’t just an economics story. It’s also a retail story, as homeownership typically drives some of consumers’ biggest-ticket purchases, including furniture, homewares and appliances. “The knock-on effects for retailers include being aware of more transient lifestyles among consumers – such as renting longer, shared housing and people moving more frequently – and therefore a drive for modular and multifunctional furniture,” McCrindle said. As younger Australians cultivate a new dream of domestic bliss – one that makes room for rental payments and landlords – many homewares and furniture retailers are responding with more nuanced marketing campaigns and product assortments. “I have noticed a lot of ‘forever home’ storytelling falling away recently and styling to suit ‘your era’ or your phase of life right now comes through a little more overtly in store campaigns,” Jemma Caprioli, Dashing’s group director of strategy and marketing, told Inside Retail. Recent years have seen the rise of brands selling homewares that don’t require a permanent home, such as Hommey with its signature bedding and sleepwear, In The Round House with its dinner party settings and Maison Balzac with its artistic glassware. “Humans will always wish to express themselves […] no matter the economic climate and actually, perhaps even because of it, as we look to fill our cups with low-cost but more meaningful items – like artwork for our walls, or a nice chair to sit on for our work from home days,” Caprioli explained. But decorative homewares brands aren’t the only retailers appealing to the new generation of renters. Furniture retailers are seizing the opportunity to create lasting pieces that can withstand multiple moves. Looking beyond the bedroom Eva didn’t set out to meet the demands of a new generation of renters. The business was initially founded by Amanda Nui and Ken Lau in 2017 as an online mattress-in-a-box brand, but rising competition in that space led it to evolve into pillows and sheets and later into furniture. In 2019, Eva launched its first first furniture piece, the Eva Timber Bed Frame – which has gone on to win the Good Design Award and a Red Dot Award as well as being a finalist at the Victorian Premier’s Design Awards. The success of its bed frame set Eva on a course to bring next-generation innovation to other common furniture pieces. In the years since, Eva has applied its design principles of form, function and originality to create a three-in-one sofa bed, a coffee table and dining table with more storage and a modular sofa that can transform for any room. Now, one of the biggest challenges to scaling Eva, according to Nui, is the price-conscious environment that surrounds an already challenging housing and rental market. “We started Eva with an accessible, direct-to-consumer model that resonated with price-conscious consumers, and many of those early customers have grown with us over the past eight years,” Nui told Inside Retail. “Some have naturally moved into our newer, more design-led pieces as their lives and spaces have evolved. But not everyone has,” she elaborated. Eva is focussed on bringing its original audience along for the next chapter, helping them understand the quality, design thinking and long-term value that sits behind its current range, even if it comes at a higher price point. “It’s a delicate balance: staying true to our roots while also raising the bar and bringing our community with us as we do,” Nui stated. However, the founders are guided by their belief that customers don’t need a forever home to have forever furniture. Instead, they aim to create investment pieces that can adapt to every space and life stage. “To make that possible, we’ve focussed our engineering and product development on tool-free assembly, modular systems and clever joinery. This makes it easier to personalise your space and take your furniture with you, too,” Lau told Inside Retail. “Our marketing exemplifies this, too – opting for talent that is diverse, in homes that feel lived in, not staged,” he continued. One of the brand’s most effective campaigns was the Everyday Sofa colour launch. Instead of simply announcing five new colourways, Eva built a narrative around each one, creating a distinct character and lifestyle to match. “We used real names, like Molly, who lives solo in a small apartment with her Olive armless module, or Tova, a mum of two whose family of four piles onto their Atlantic four-seater for movie nights and rough-and-tumble play,” Nui said. She believes the campaign worked because it invited people to see themselves in the product, not just through specs or pricing, but through personality, story and lifestyle. “It shifted the focus from features to feelings. Combined with beautiful, editorial-style imagery, it created an emotional bridge between the sofa and the everyday lives people aspire to or relate to. It felt human, not transactional,” she said. According to Nui, this campaign single-handedly rejuvenated Eva’s product line and helped it hit targets within two months of launching. The industry standard abroad To understand what the future of furniture and homewares retail could look like in Australia, industry experts say businesses should look to Asia, where designing for and marketing to long-term renters in dense urban areas has long been the norm. “As urban density grows and home ownership remains a struggle for many Australians, local furniture retailers have much to gain by looking to Asian markets, where compact living is a way of life,” Nader Agha, home furnishing and retail design manager at Ikea Australia, told Inside Retail. Two homewares and furniture brands from Asia have already found success in the Australian market: Singaporean furniture retailer Castlery, which is about to open its second store Down Under, and Japanese household goods retailer Muji. Castlery has earned a reputation for offering stylish, well-designed and durable furniture, while Muji is focussed on functionality, quality and simplicity with its no-brand branding. “I think in general, Australian retailers can and do look to Asia as a guide for what they should do ‘next’. Asia – places like Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo – celebrate the store and the way it can connect, and provide value for their customer,” Caprioli said. “Asian retailers use the store first and foremost to tell a story, to connect and last, to transact. If Australian retailers take anything away from Asian retail brands, it should be the prioritisation of story beyond store,” she continued. “If they tell a story that speaks with relevance to our young consumer, a consumer that is living a new meaning of ‘home’, then I believe they will succeed.” Selling with a personal touch While changing consumer lifestyles have shifted product design and marketing strategies, certain aspects of homewares and furniture retail remain the same, such as the need to touch and feel products in real life before making a big investment. “For many, a sofa isn’t just another purchase; it’s something they live with every day. And there’s still a group of customers who simply won’t part with a large amount of money without experiencing the product in person first,” Nui explained. Eva opened its first bricks-and-mortar store in Melbourne in July 2024 and a second location in Sydney in June 2025. While the stores are first and foremost intended to convey the quality of the brand’s products, Nui said they’re also meant to serve as a third space for the community to connect with Eva in new ways. “The physical spaces give us a chance to show the depth of our design and material quality and that confidence has translated into higher conversion and lower return rates,” Nui said. “We’re still a digital-first brand, but the showrooms give our customers a tangible sense of trust.” As consumer needs in this sector continue to evolve, physical locations also provide an opportunity for Eva to show how it is responding to the way Australians are living today. “Renters who want to turn a space into a real home gravitate towards Eva because we make it easy to live well even without a permanent address,” Nui shared. “They’re done with flatpack fatigue and furniture that feels temporary,” she continued. “Eva ticks all the boxes for what they need: it’s easy to move, easy to assemble and built to last, but also something they’re genuinely proud to have in their home.” Renting may not be the end goal for many Australians, but retailers are innovating and designing to sell consumers a new idea of domestic bliss, even if it’s temporary. “While the Great Australian Dream of home ownership is still alive and well, it is being redefined,” McCrindle concluded. This story first appeared in the August 2025 issue of Inside Retail Australia magazine.