That’s given rise to a new crop of interactive, online visualization tools aimed at converting thought into action and, more specifically, into purchases of home improvement products and materials. These web-enabled design tools range from technology that swaps out colors and finishes in room settings to online floor plans in which shoppers can arrange accurately scaled outlines of their own or a manufacturer’s furniture.
Advanced visualization technology also has made its way into the online presentation of other merchandise such as apparel, but one of the largest clusters of such tools today is found on the web sites of home improvement retailers and manufacturers. At Scene7 Inc., for example, whose technology powers a variety of interactive visualization tools at web sites spanning several industries, CEO Doug Mack estimates that half of his business is with web sites of companies in the home improvement and home furnishings sector.
And while consumers in some cases can try out different looks and then order home accent pieces or some items of furniture online, plenty of the design tools are on sites that aren’t even e-commerce-enabled. Supply chain issues, the challenge of last-mile delivery, and the sheer bulk and high ticket attached to products such as flooring, sinks and sofas have made them poor candidates for online sales and fulfillment. Nevertheless, home goods and home improvement materials companies ranging from La-Z-Boy Inc. to Congoleum Corp. are rolling out increasingly sophisticated online visualization technology.
Why? Home improvement purchases are some of the most heavily researched, and the web offers the potential of breaking through what’s always been a barrier to sales: customers’ inability to see how the product will look or fit in their own homes before they buy. By letting customers select a product online and then try out different materials and colors, even room arrangements, “The web does what you can’t do in other channels,” Mack says.
In implementing online design tools from a vendor, as with any enterprise software, retailers pay based on how much capacity they buy. At Scene7, for example, some clients pay for service as simple as dynamic imaging for a single product while others pay for a large number of visualization tools. Most of Scene7’s retail and manufacturer clients fall in the middle, says Mack, paying $50,000 to the low to mid six figures in one-time software licensing fees, depending on breadth of applications deployed and volume of use.
Technology providers say the investment pays off. In the case of higher-end interior building materials or furniture, purchases are typically large ticket, even into five figures, and it may take the consumer three months or longer to buy, Mack notes. “You have to keep them engaged in the process and remove their purchase objections so they don’t freeze to a stop,” he adds. “This type of technology is so spot-on for home improvement and home furnishings products that it should be the centerpiece of a web strategy.”
That’s the promise, but does the technology deliver? Utilization rates of the tools range from high to low on the sites that have them. 95% of visitors at home shelving systems provider ClosetMaid.com, a division of Emerson Electric Co.’s Emerson Storage Solutions unit, use one of the site’s three design tools, for example, while 10% to 15% of visitors to Furniture.com deploy its Room Planner feature. Operators of both sites say the tools do a good job of engaging customers, but across the board, metrics linking tool use to store purchases are harder to come by.
Armstrong World Industries Inc.’s Design-A-Room feature, which lets users try out 2,000 hardwood, laminate and vinyl flooring products in various room settings online, went up as a link on home improvement retailer Lowes.com last year, and it’s been up on Armstrong.com for two years. The tool, created by UK firm MakeIt, is the most popular interactive feature on a site that also includes a materials estimator and store locator, says Armstrong general manager of e-marketing Jesse Engle.
The company doesn’t have a system for thoroughly tracking utilization of the online tool through to store sales, though it’s piloting a program that will close the loop post-sale to provide some of that information, Engle says. For now, Armstrong measures the tool’s effectiveness based on the percentage of site visitors who use it, about 25% to 40%, as well as on feedback from a survey of Design-A-Room users.
Not a hard sales job
But Engle adds it didn’t take hard numbers to get Armstrong’s marketing organization behind online design tools. The ability to visualize how the product will look installed in the shopper’s own rooms has always been central to flooring products sales; the online tools bring a new solution to an old problem.
“Like many considered purchases, flooring involves an emotional and rational component,” Engle says. “There’s the emotional component of making my home match the image I have of myself—that’s the piece where Design-A-Room comes into play. On the rational side, we try to have tools that will help consumers understand what type of floor is right for them and what it’s going to cost. That’s as far as we take them on the site today. We then want to deliver a predisposed consumer to the appropriate retail outlet.”
Because Armstrong sells product at multiple locations from big boxes to independent flooring retailers, that could be any of hundreds of outlets—one reason tracking tool use through to sale is difficult. What it means for retailers is that while manufacturers are investing in the tools to increase product sales overall, there’s no guarantee of sales for particular retailers.
Some, like Lowes.com, boost the likelihood that shoppers will fulfill at their stores by putting links to manufacturer’s sites and design tools on their own site. “Retailers and manufacturers in that space are trying to push the shopping assistance angle in an attempt to increase overall spending in the category. And hopefully, some of that spending is going to happen at the site where they’re doing that, not at someone else’s,” says analyst Geoff Wissman of consultants Retail Forward Inc.
Furniture.com developed an online Room Planner to tackle what CEO Carl Prindle says is one of the biggest challenges in designing a room: the issue of scale. Built internally and launched online in 1999 under an earlier corporate organization, it was one of the first of such interactive design tools available in the web’s home product consumer marketplace. The tool allows site visitors to create an online floor plan and place in it accurately scaled outlines of furniture pulled from the retailers’ inventory or already in the customer’s home.
New customers
While Prindle did not disclose the tool’s precise impact on sales either online or in the showrooms of its partners, the Levitz Furniture Co. Inc. and Seaman Furniture Co. Inc. chains, he says, “Our retailers are seeing a large segment of customers finding Furniture.com, falling in love with a product, and purchasing from the retailer. Some would not have gone into those stores without the additional information available online. We’re also getting more people who purchase online without ever going to a showroom.” Prindle adds that the dimensional information available on Room Planner also reduces returns.
No more than 10% to 15% of Furniture.com visitors use Room Planner, but Prindle says that meets his utilization target for the tool. “Home furnishings sites attract many types of customers. Some come to the site just to look at pictures and get ideas. Our objective is to move those customers farther down the conversion trail,” he says. “Given the number who come to the site just to browse, we’re happy with getting 10% to 15% to take the next step and design a room online.”
Home improvement and home product retailers who have a longer history with online design tools or who simply have less volume and fewer retail outlets to track have made some headway linking the tools to sales.
Take ClosetMaid. So far, consumers can’t actually purchase ClosetMaid wire shelving systems online. Even so, the web is ClosetMaid’s most important tool for increasing store sales of the product and it’s responsible for millions in incremental sales annually, director of product management and Internet marketing Will Rose says.
ClosetMaid put its first closet design tool online at its own site five years ago and now offers access to the tool through links on the retail web sites of Lowe’s Cos. Inc. and Home Depot Inc., ClosetMaid’s two biggest retail partners. The tool generates one of several pre-set closet configurations based on questions a shopper answers online. It instantly delivers an image of the closet system that’s the best match and a shopping list of parts.
ClosetMaid offers the same interactive tool on its own site, plus a more sophisticated version allowing for greater customization as well as a third option, an online professional design service staffed with 17 architects and interior designers. For $15, customers supply dimensions and other information about storage needs online and receive in return a customized closet system plan, color and line art rendering of the system, parts list and retailer list.
When the design is completed, the customer receives an e-mail from ClosetMaid with a link to a web page, set up especially for that customer, from which the customer can view and print out the information. ClosetMaid supports the tool with live chat and e-mail. “We wanted to give the consumer the power to walk into a store already knowing what they want,” Rose says.
Knowledge=spending
The customer who know more buys more, ClosetMaid’s numbers show. 95% of the visitors to the web site use one of the three tools, says Rose. The average ClosetMaid purchase for a customer who buys the shelving at a retailer without first using one of the online design tools is under $100, while the shopper who users either the first-tier or second-tier design tool spends an average $200. Shoppers who use the online professional design service option spend the most: more than $300 on average, according to ClosetMaid’s online customer surveys. “People will spend more on a project if they are confident they’re doing the right thing,” Rose says. “If you can see that closet perfectly laid out online and know exactly what you’re going to get, you’re very willing to spend the money.”
Visualization tools increased web site sales by 45% at Design Within Reach, a San Francisco-based multi-channel retailer of new and classic modern furniture, within a month of when it added clickable swatches and zoom capability for certain products.
The enhanced imaging features allow customers to see fabric and pattern options as they would look on items under consideration, as well as greater detail on appearance and construction, such as how a table’s legs are connected to its top. The enhanced imaging capacity, powered by Scene7, was initially offered on 100 products for which marketers deemed the ability to see enlarged detail or different fabric treatments would increase shoppers’ confidence in making purchase decisions. Design Within Reach says it will extend enhanced visualization across 225 products or about 35% of its online SKUs.
“Our customers love these features, as they make the online shopping experience more tangible and enjoyable,” says Vince Barriero, Design Within Reach’s CIO. “We were able to add the capabilities to our site in a matter of weeks and sales have increased for products showcased with the technology.”
The vanguard
The experience of Design Within Reach aside, retail analysts say the future of the web-based design-it-yourself tools is likely research, not online sales.
“People like to play and look around and see what is out there,” says Retail Forward’s Wissman. “If you’re remodeling your kitchen, there are a lot of options to look at before you go with one. A lot of the tools out there are pretty neat. But it’s still early in terms of testing and seeing what tools people really will use. Long term, they’re going to be more sustainable as part of the marketing and discovery process.”
It may be early in the life of these tools, but the user vanguard already is pushing for more. Once again, the web has raised consumer expectations. In addition to feedback from users thrilled with Design A Room, Armstrong’s Engle also hears from others who are disappointed. “They tell us there are not enough wall colors, cabinet colors or ability to change out the countertops,” he says. “It didn’t do what they wanted it to do.”
Armstrong’s conclusion about that customer group has implications for any retailer or manufacturer using or considering design tools online. “There is now a whole class of consumer who expects this kind of functionality online and may even have experience using it in other product categories,” Engle says. “It’s not enough for them to just play around with it. They want to use it to get as close as possible to what the room is actually going to look like and they’re placing a lot of weight on the outcome.”
As a result, it’s safe to say that this is just the start of a new burst of
functionality that only the web can bring to retailing. “As we look at where
we want to go in the next phase of this,” Engle says, “we’re planning to build
out visualization in a way that meets the requirements of both kinds of customers.”
mary@verticalwebmedia.com
