• by Christine Bittar , October 26, 2006

Home furnishings marketers build welcoming sites

by Christine Bittar

Sales of home furnishings have been lackluster given the slump in the housing market, but home improvement marketers have become more aggressive in an effort to counteract the cyclical slump. Interactive and online efforts, which tend to have a higher ROI than traditional TV and print ad campaigns, are growing more sophisticated.

E-commerce sales at the largest home retailers are on the rise. And the number of do-it-yourselfers (DIYs) has increased due both to the housing boom of the last decade and to the Internet. At The Home Depot, for instance, which has the highest online sales of any home retailer, online sales increased from $163.7 million in 2004, representing 34 percent of total category sales, to $279.7 million, or 33 percent of the category last year, per eMarketer, citing an estimate by InternetRetailer.com. Lowe’s, No. 2 in the online hardware/home improvement retail category, brought in sales of $110.2 million in 2004, accounting for 23 percent of category sales, and racked up $148.8 million in sales in 2005.

Most home retailers are not yet focused on streaming video or even online customer relationship marketing tactics, according to Marc Blumberg, senior vice president at the interactive agency imc2. Instead, for these retailers, catering to consumers online means realizing that their Web sites serve as a research tool as well as an e-commerce site; assisting with that research can ultimately mean higher sales.

“Many chains [Lowe’s, Sam’s Clubs, and Pier 1] are dealing with the fact that their biggest stores, financially, are actually their dot-com sites,” says Blumberg. Still, he adds, “Retailers have to get out of the transaction mindset.”

DIYs Versus DIFMs

Blumberg believes that many home furnishings and improvement companies are gradually gaining a deeper understanding of their consumers. Many home improvement marketers are looking for ways to cater to the growing number of DIYs. For example, bathroom products marketer Moen is helping consumers by letting them “create an experience,” says Blumberg. A feature on Moen.com called “design center” allows consumers to pick and choose bathroom and kitchen elements to see how combinations look together while also tracking pricing. A user who clicks on “design your own bath” can choose various faucets and experiment with countertops and colors, cabinet designs, paint colors for walls, and other items Moen doesn’t offer.

James Kim, vice president of strategy at Organic, says that when his agency works with a client on Web site design, it generally separates consumers into two different groups: There are the DIYs and the do-it-for-mes (DIFMs). DIYs want to create their own combinations, and DIFMs want color schemes planned, Kim says.

On its Web site, flooring company Armstrong caters to DIYs with an “installation” section offering instructions and downloadable guides on how to install various types of flooring, including wood, linoleum, laminate, and ceramic tile. There are also room design sections to help consumers create mock-up rooms. Armstrong also sells “design my room” software for $9.99 that allows consumers to experiment with various design options and how they’ll look by uploading photos.

Virtual Furnishings

Scene 7, a San Francisco-based technology firm, specializes in on-demand and rich media platforms and has consulted on home improvement retailers’ Web strategies. The shop’s home furnishings and home improvement clients — including Delta Faucet, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware — are getting positive results by using Scene 7’s graphics-enhancing software. Sheila Dahlgren, senior vice president of marketing at Scene 7, says that client Williams-Sonoma reported a nearly 50 percent increase in Web site conversion rates since it incorporated the rich media technology.

Restoration Hardware used Scene 7 software to allow consumers to see different fabrics on upholstered furniture. While other sites generally show fabric swatches next to a sofa, clicking on any one of the sofas and chairs on the Restoration site shows multiple views and enables consumers to zoom in and out on every available fabric on any chair or sofa.

Dahlgren explains that displaying accurate images of fabrics on furniture is more complicated than showing different color choices of clothing on apparel sites, because it’s important that textured and print fabrics drape correctly on furniture, especially with elaborate or tufted styles. “On a $2,000 couch, those are critical details. You want to see exactly how it will look,” Dahlgren adds.

The only alternative to including these details without the Scene 7 software is to build it manually in Flash. It’s also often a costly proposition to shoot the photos necessary to illustrate the range of choices, according to Dahlgren.

Williams-Sonoma Home is also a Scene 7 client. One of the more notable ways it’s using the technology on its Web site is by offering personalization features. Williams-Sonoma offers personalization and monograms on items including aprons, glasses, cheeseboards, and cookies. Going online allows shoppers to see how a name or monogram will look printed on an apron or glass before it’s purchased — an important benefit, since personalized items aren’t returnable.

For Drexel Heritage, Scene 7 created “Room Scenes,” which allow consumers to pick items out of a decorated room and obtain pricing, as well as dimensions via a pop-up window adjacent to the room image.

And for The Home Depot, Scene 7 technology is incorporated in stores via Behr paint kiosks to help customers select and coordinate paint colors. The site for home furnishings giant La-Z-Boy helps consumers configure their room layouts with a “Room Planner” that can be saved or printed out. Beyond merely arranging furniture, the Room Planner functions like an online drafting tool, allowing for changes in room measurements, room shape, and even exact measurements of furniture and other items in a room.

Organic’s Kim says home retailers need to use more streaming video on their sites, something he says would work nicely to support DIY instructions. Kim says he’d like to see home retailers reach out to online social communities — something that could easily be done through e-mails or even via chat rooms.