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    The Role of 3D and Augmented Reality in Furniture eCommerce 

    In the furniture industry, it's essential to be able to accurately convey furniture pieces online through your furniture eCommerce platform. Consumers and business owners alike want to know what to expect with their purchases, particularly with potentially costly and space-consuming products like furniture.

    Many furniture companies still rely on traditional furniture eCommerce stores to sell their products online. But shoppers want a unique experience that essentially replicates the in-store buying experience. 

    One tool that can allow for this is a furniture configurator with 3D, virtual photography and augmented reality capabilities. Using a configurator for your furniture eCommerce platform will enable you to best represent your products and build trust among your online audiences. 

    To help you better understand the value of the right configuration solution for your furniture business, the following is an exploration of the advantages of using 3D, VP and AR in a fully-loaded configurator.

    One platform, three ways to visualize  Learn More

    Why 3D and AR for Furniture?

    Furniture Config Live Demo

    Online furniture retailers are among the fastest-growing businesses in the eCommerce industry. Today, both furniture and homeware eCommerce generate nearly $55 billion in revenue every year. Furniture and home furnishing sales account for nearly 12% of the total retail eCommerce revenue in the U.S.

    Despite the profitability of this industry, online shopping for furniture poses certain risks for consumers. When buying furniture online, people may wonder whether the furniture will look right or fit in their space. With the help of a 3D product configurator for an online furniture store, you can eliminate all doubt during the buying process and more effectively lead people toward sales. 

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    Innovations in 3D modeling, virtual photography (VP) and augmented reality (AR) can bring your virtual products to life. The ideal configurator will have all of these features. A 3D furniture configurator enables customers to fully customize and explore a piece of furniture using a detailed 3D recreation. They can change different features and see them updated in real time as they rotate or zoom in on the image. 

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    By using the right configurator, you’ll instill more confidence in your online customers and boost eCommerce sales of home goods and furniture.

    What Threekit does

    If you’re looking for the ideal product configurator to revamp the furniture shopping experience for your online store, Threekit offers one of the most innovative solutions available. 

    Threekit is an end-to-end 3D, virtual photography and AR solution that can create and manage your products at every stage. Through the integration of Threekit’s configurator for furniture and home furnishings, product lifecycle management (PLM) meets 3D capabilities. 

    With the help of Threekit, you can do everything from saving time and money with virtual photography that fully digitizes your inventory to creating a virtual showroom with interactive augmented reality. 

    Customers can also explore 3D visuals in-depth and see every detail that you want to include, such as: 

    • Accurate colors 
    • Textures
    • Structural designs
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    B2C use cases for configurators

    Threekit can enable any B2C furniture eCommerce platform to increase online sales for home furniture of all types. Customers can use the configurator to see how furniture pieces would appear in their homes and determine whether their creations are the right fit. 

    For example, The Lovesac Company wanted to sell their signature “Sactionals,” which are highly customizable couches. Using Threekit, Lovesac gave shoppers the ability to conveniently customize these sectionals and see precisely how they would appear once purchased.

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    B2B use cases for configurators

    When selling to business owners, furniture stores need to convince these customers that furniture is a worthwhile investment for their offices or venues. A 3D furniture configurator for a B2B eCommerce website can be the key to revamping the B2B customer experience by effectively showcasing business furniture products. 

    One company that benefited from integrating Threekit’s product configurator was Steelcase, which needed a solution for its Coalesse company. 

    Specifically, Coalesse wanted to increase sales and excitement for their LessThanFive Chair. A customizer helped them achieve this by guiding users through the design process from design to color and texture selection.

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    Valuable to D2C, retailers and distributors

    Businesses in the furniture industry benefit from integrating Threekit’s product configurator with their furniture eCommerce platform, whether they’re direct-to-consumer companies, retailers or distributors. 

    D2C companies can easily use Threekit to internally manage their furniture eCommerce site, including pricing operations. This solution also enables resellers and retailers, including those reselling furniture products via dropshipping.

    Selling furniture with 3D made easy

    Both internally and externally, a reliable 3D and AR platform can help you optimize your business in a number of ways.

    Design and prototype

    Easily design and develop prototypes for new products using a 3D furniture configurator and virtual photography. If you want to develop a new product line, your design teams can get a feel for how the final product will look, fit and function. 

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    Digital draping

    Users also have the ability to easily drape products with detailed surface textures and patterns on any piece of furniture. This is achievable through a virtual photography solution that accurately captures every detail of every design using product samples and innovative software. 

    Real-time furniture configuration and configurable AR

    When customizing furniture based on their preferences, customers can benefit from the ability to update visuals in real time with each selection. With every design, color and pattern selection, customers can interact with the visualization via the configurator to see how it will look. 

    Customers can further determine whether furniture pieces are right for them using configurable augmented reality (AR). 

    This feature allows customers to visualize their custom furniture designs in the real world using their mobile devices. They can then see the furniture up close in the designated space and decide whether it’s the right match.

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    Digital asset management/marketing automation and optimization

    If you want to optimize your asset management and digital marketing efforts, a configurator for your furniture eCommerce platform can also achieve this. 

    Threekit allows for efficient digital asset management that: 

    • Connects all assets to your product catalog 
    • Stores all assets in one place 
    • Allows for the creation and assigning of specific tasks 

    Using high-quality images created through virtual photography, you can repurpose your digital assets for a number of applications. For instance, you could showcase products in your marketing strategy through omnichannel campaigns with high-quality images or 3D animations. 

    Made-to-order workflows and lean manufacturing/commerce

    Make workflows more efficient than ever with automatically generated and exported manufacturing outputs. These outputs include all: 

    • CAD files 
    • Bills of materials 
    • Production-ready models 
    • Cut patterns 
    • Assembly instructions 
    • Additional details that automate the manufacturing process 

    Additionally, you’ll be able to minimize waste and maximize labor efficiency to facilitate lean manufacturing and commerce processes. 

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    Digitally integrated supply chain

    You’ll never lose track of where your products are throughout the order fulfillment process. Threekit’s furniture configurator fully integrates the supply chain to help you determine which resources you’ll require for each product and keep track of existing inventory.

    Features that furniture manufacturers love

    Just like B2C industries, B2B businesses can also benefit from using 3D product configuration solutions for their eCommerce platforms. B2B sellers can experience advantages such as:

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    Dynamic pricing

     

    When users customize furniture pieces in a configurator, the pricing can update in real time with each selection using a configure price quote (CPQ) feature. 

    This displays the price to let customers know how each selection influences the total price, further eliminating doubt before buying. This also allows sales staff to easily and accurately quote products when working with customers. 

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    One-click product detail page (PDP) updating 

    Need to update any detail on your product pages? The convenience of Threekit’s furniture configurator makes it easy to make changes with a single click. 

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    Digital draping/dynamic product draping

     

    Digital draping technology makes sure every fabric pattern and texture properly drapes over furniture designs. Whenever a customer makes a different selection, it will perfectly match the furniture structure. 

    Threekit - 5 Ways AR Can Provide a Better B2B Buying Experience

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    Room planner integrations

    When manufacturers want to offer customers the chance to plan rooms using virtual spaces, Threekit enables the integration of all digital assets into a virtual room planner. Customers can see how multiple furniture pieces would appear in a hypothetical living room, office space or another area to supplement AR capabilities. 

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    Scalable material and fabric updating

    As you add more materials and textiles to your catalog, you can easily integrate them into your configurator. Simply capture new fabric and material designs using virtual photography and instantly add them to the corresponding furniture designs. 

    This gives customers access to new interior design and home decor options as soon as they’re made available. 

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    Nesting software integration

    When using other types of software to complete tasks beyond product configuration and ordering, Threekit allows for ease of integration to ensure it works with the rest of your existing system. In turn, you benefit from a seamless experience when introducing Threekit to your processes. 

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    ERP Integration

    In assisting with integration, Threekit’s furniture configurator can integrate with your ERP. You’ll be able to take your ERP system to the next level with configurable 3D visualizations and augmented reality. 

    In the process, you can increase conversions with your ERP by as much as 40%. 

    Business benefits of using a 3D configurator

    A 3D furniture configurator offers several key benefits on the business side to improve the cost-effectiveness and overall efficiency of running an engaging furniture eCommerce platform. These benefits include: 

    1.

    Reduced costs

    With Threekit, you own your iteration of the platform. You can use it for all of your products and repurpose it for marketing and other applications. 

    You can also save money on returns, which account for a lot of the costs in eCommerce. 

    The returns process in eCommerce entails many steps and materials that can quickly become expensive. But minimal returns mean minimal hassle. 

    Additionally, you’ll save money on photography costs when you integrate virtual photography software. Using VP technology, you can bypass the need to schedule a photoshoot, hire photographers and ship products to a shooting location, saving you even more money in the long term. 

    2.

    Shortened delivery times

    Automatic made-to-order workflows help further shorten delivery times and increase speed to market. This gets your products to customers faster than ever to further increase satisfaction. 

    3.

    Fewer manufacturing errors

    A 3D furniture configurator generates bills of materials with each order, along with assembly instructions and other order management details. Subsequently, manufacturers are more likely to get every order right the first time, consistently giving customers what they want. 

    4.

    Lower acquisition costs

    More efficient acquisition through an engaging configurator means reduced acquisition costs. Customers will likely enjoy interacting with a configurator as they design their own furniture pieces, leading them more quickly to a sale.

    5.

    Increased AOV and UPT

    A furniture configurator makes it easy for businesses to upsell products and encourage increased order values. For example, customers may see that certain options are on sale at discounted prices and opt to add them, or they may simply decide to add an appealing feature that keeps the final product within their available budget. 

    You can also recommend similar products for people to order through your configurator, which can lead to increased UPT. 

    6.

    Increased customer lifetime value

    An intuitive and engaging furniture configurator will provide the ideal customer experience, which means more customers will be likely to return for repeat purchases. 

    In addition, you can make product recommendations through email, social media and other platforms in a multi-channel marketing campaign to encourage customers to return. 

    How to choose the right product configurator

    Depending on your business’s unique needs, there are multiple types of furniture configurators available for any furniture eCommerce platform. These potential solutions include: 

    • Enterprise resource planning (ERP) configurator modules 
    • Knowledge-based engineering solutions 
    • Enterprise product configurators 
    • Product visualization software 

    The ideal solution will need to meet your company’s specific requirements based on your existing business model and systems. You can find out more about how to make the right selection by consulting the experts at Threekit. 

    How do I get started with a product configurator?

    Want to have a 3D furniture configurator for your business? Threekit offers one of the most reliable solutions available for your furniture eCommerce platform. Our comprehensive configurator functions as an easy-to-install plugin for many of the best furniture eCommerce platform options, including Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce and others. 

    If you would like to get started implementing a product configurator for your business, then schedule a demo with Threekit today. Also, if you have any additional questions about our solution and what it can do for you, get in touch with us to learn more.