Scout Design Studio: Shop Thousands of Perfect Combinations
Scout Design Studio partnered with Threekit and Shopify to bring over 20,000 unique product combinations to their eCommerce experience.
Features Used
- 3D Configurator
- Advanced Business Rules
- Real-Time Pricing
- Manufacturing automation
Background
Started in the heart of the Dallas Design District, Scout Design Studio brings the work of over 40 local furniture artisans to the world. They carefully find and curate their own collections, offering limited-run Scout Label furniture, exclusive artwork, niche decor, custom furniture made in Texas, as well as some rare vintage finds.
Their hub is an 18,500-square-foot showroom, housing a well-edited collection of new and vintage furniture, artwork, lighting, and home accessories from around the globe. Their team of artisans also offers in-house bespoke services for custom and vintage furniture, and ships across the contiguous United States. They also work directly with trusted overseas partners to create exclusive collections, and source unique products that
your neighbor won’t have.
In 2018, they launched their own line of customizable furniture. While wholly unique, these pieces presented a challenge for eCommerce: Being able to faithfully represent the singular materials and quality across every possible product combination, and enable shoppers to create those pieces in real time.
Challenge
Scout’s products are inspired by older vintage styles but are created by hand to the specifications of the buyer. Their extensive product line includes everything from desks to headboards, benches to consoles – each has different options for size, fabric, finishes, hardware and details.
Showing every potential product combination online was entirely cost prohibitive, requiring them to manufacture and photography over 20k product combinations. Plus, they wanted to enable shoppers and designers to configure and see products in real time. Since they were on the Shopify platform so they also needed a solution that integrated seamlessly with it.
Further, Scout needed a visual commerce solution to address the scale issue, enable their buyers and still deliver on their unparalleled quality.
“Wade Morrison (3D artist) was one of my first hires to grow our team, and he introduced 3D modeling to the team and open doors for us to really be able to show products to really view all of the different materials that we were adding, and we've really grown from there.”
The Solution
Clearly, Scout needed an omni-channel visual configurator that could grow with their expanding product line and sales volume. Scout looked at several 3D configuration solutions but selected Threekit for several key reasons:
- Scalability: Threekit solved the problem of being able to efficiently create a custom product configuration solution. The platform houses all the necessary materials and products, plus the rules and logic of how those products can be put together. Additionally, it’s easy to upload new products and materials as Scout updates their portfolio.
- Omni-channel capabilities: Scout needed to be able to use the configurator in all their channels: It wasn’t just eCommerce. They also needed the configurator as a sales tool in their brick-and-mortar showrooms and with their salespeople.
- Quality 3D visuals: Scout needed to ensure that, even though the visuals would be rendered in 3D, they still met the quality requirements of a high-end luxury product.
- Shopify integration: Threekit is a composable solution that integrates with eCommerce platforms, including Shopify. This means that buyers could configure products on the Shopify site within the Threekit player and then transact.
- Workflow Integration: Scout needed to integrate their eCommerce transactions with production. When a customer presses 'buy', all the manufacturing workflows like Bill of Materials and assembly instructions are sent directly to the production department.
- Self-maintenance: The Scout team had invested in hiring a 3D artist to help lead the initiative. They’d heard that when working with visual commerce software, there is a certain level of expertise necessary to make updates and revisions quickly. They needed a solution that their artist could self-maintain. Threekit’s was the most user-friendly and intuitive.
“We have one main showroom in Dallas so they use this in store on their ipads to show clients product customization in real time. It’s pretty widely used on our sales team.”
Grace Waters, Director of Marketing and eCommerce at ScoutThe Results: Better Catalog Exposure, Better Customer Experience
Working with Threekit and Shopify, Scout Design Studio was able to:
- Represent their 20,000+ different product combinations
- Bring 83 configurable designer-grade products online
By implementing Threekit's tools, Scout is now able to use scaled, configurable product images to represent and maintain 100% of their custom catalog. They've also streamlined their hand-off to production through Threekit's manufacturing automation.
Online shoppers, showroom visitors, and sales staff are now able to view Scout's entire line using stunning 3D images, real-time pricing, and an efficient, intuitive user experience.
Shortly after implementation, they saw an increase in customer engagement. Online shoppers could not fully explore their custom products before Threekit. Now, Scout averages about 3,750 configuration sessions each month.