Product Features

Why Better Engagement Means More Conversions in Online Furniture Sales

Tangiblee

October 26, 2021

Why Better Engagement Means More Conversions in Online Furniture Sales

Buying new furniture is by nature an interactive experience. However, creating highly interactive online experiences requires technical competencies beyond traditional online store development. It's no wonder many furniture retailers who lack this core competency have struggled with the transition to online commerce.

According to Forbes Magazine, COVID-19 has caused significant damage to brick-and-mortar retailers and heavily impacted furniture stores in particular. Adding to the challenges caused by the pandemic, UBS analysts believe by 2025 that a total of 100,000 retailers will die off during the continued shift to online—of which 11,280 will be furniture retailers.

For furniture retailers, surviving the shift to digital means embracing eCommerce and the digital technologies that drive it forward. But as we've mentioned previously, simply maintaining a passive storefront isn't enough. Customers must be able to visualize products they are considering buying; they need lifestyle content that lets them envision products in real-world environments.

Today, we're going to take a deeper dive into the specific mechanics of interactive content, while introducing you to an immersive shopping solution that can bring the same engaging offline experience online quickly and easily.

The Power of an Interactive User Experience

You only have a few seconds to win over a customer, so anything you can do to keep them engaged is a winning strategy.

Consider the following:

The average user encounters an estimated 6,000-10,000 ads each day.
In a survey conducted by Indeed, more than half of people have experienced some form of burnout in 2021.
In 2021, the average human attention span is now 8 seconds, down from the 12 seconds revealed by a 2000 Microsoft survey.
58% of people stop doing business with a company because of poor customer experience.
32% of people will even abandon a brand they love after a single bad experience.
94% of people who rate a company's customer experience as "very good" are likely to purchase more products or services from that company in the future.

The time and attention of modern shoppers are both at an all-time low. They will no longer tolerate any brand that doesn't immediately grab and hold their attention. In other words, if you do not provide as seamless and engaging an experience as possible, you're very likely losing sales.

Plus, if your storefront inspires confidence and promotes engagement, you'll be rewarded with more conversions and greater revenue—and interactivity is by far one of the best ways to achieve that engagement.

Interactive content generates double the engagement of passive content and twice as many conversions. And though it doesn't directly relate to eCommerce, 88% of marketers indicated that interactivity is a strong competitive differentiator, with 93% agreeing that it's effective in educating buyers.

None of these statistics are particularly surprising if you stop to think about it. When purchasing furniture, most consumers want to know if the size, shape, and color will be a good fit for their home. They need to be able to contextualize a product before they commit—to know that they won't have to deal with the frustration of a bad purchase and the stress of a difficult (or impossible) return process, especially for bulky items like furniture.

The simple truth is that there's a huge gap between shopping in the physical and digital worlds. When you're at a brick-and-mortar store, you can examine prospective purchases firsthand. You can see exactly how large a cabinet is, compare the colors of an ottoman to your own decor, figure out whether or not a table will fit your dining room.

A great online shopping experience bridges this gap. It gives customers the opportunity to see not only how different products in your catalog compare to one another but also lets them visualize how those products fit into a room. But perhaps most importantly of all, it doesn't just provide your audience with information —it also provides you with valuable data about your customers' buying behavior.

How Tangiblee Drives Engagement and Retention

A plug-and-play immersive shopping experience platform like Tangiblee adds visual context to every product in your catalog—without the need for expensive support elements like development teams or marketing agencies. Here are just a few of the ways you can use Tangiblee to bring your retail experience into the future:

RoomView‍

With RoomView, customers can compare your products to everyday items, including lamps, dressers, couches, televisions, and even pets/people. In just seconds, they can put together a room with dimensions tailored to the size of their own space. This allows them to intuitively visualize how each of your products will look in their space, while also giving them full context on details such as size, shape, and color.

Compare

Tangiblee Compare provides your customers with a simple means of visually comparing your catalog items at scale. Combined with RoomView, this provides a seamless, visual means of determining actual product dimensions. Prospects are even able to compare multiple SKUs in a single environment for added upsell opportunities.

Studio & Lifestyle Content

Allow your customers to see how a product might look in a real-life environment without any additional images or photos. After selecting a setting that most closely matches their own space, customers can effortlessly add products to the scene. Our Studio and Lifestyle content also saves you a considerable amount of money on photography and graphic design.

Tangiblee Management Portal (Performance Dashboard)

Curious how customers are engaging with your website's custom experience? Wondering which of your products is generating the most interest? The Tangiblee Management Portal (TMP) provides real-time, extensive eCommerce performance and usage reports to let you know exactly what visitors are engaging with and the impact on your furniture business.

Curated, Personalized Engagement Leads to Real-time Results

Interactivity and engagement go hand-in-hand. Tangiblee allows you to deliver both, offering your prospects the necessary context and information they need to make more confident purchases. And if you aren't sold yet, read what our customers have to say.

What Furniture Retailers Are Saying About Tangiblee:

Coleman Furniture

Approximately 12% of Coleman's audience interacts with our platform. Conversion rates increases have been consistent across the board. And when tested against control groups, results have been even better than expected.

"We expected a lift of 1%," explains Bruce Krinsky, CEO of Coleman Furniture. "We ended up with a lift of 27%."

APT2B.com

Apt2B performed an A/B test involving Tangiblee in 2018, which resulted in an 8x increase in conversion rates and double-digit gains in both average order value and revenue per visitor. Alex Back - C.O.O. of Apt2b.com - explains his thoughts on why Tangiblee is so invaluable:

"I think what makes Tangiblee stand out so much is the technology itself. The ability to, with almost perfect accuracy, show or visualize what a product looks like — in a room, with perfect accuracy — makes [the software] very unique. I don’t know of any other product or technology that’s doing the same thing.”

Hipvan

Online-only furniture retailer Hipvan saw an increase in both revenues per visitor and conversion rate through Tangiblee. It also experienced a 15% reduction in return rate. Here's what Shobhit Datta had to say about Tangiblee:

"We saw that people who saw Tangiblee not only bought more but were more engaged and looked at more products...with Tangiblee, customers are giving more consideration to working with us than shopping in traditional brick-and-mortar storefronts..."