Today’s discerning shoppers are accustomed to immersive, personalized experiences – and if they don’t get them, they can simply go to another retailer. For that reason, your furniture showroom needs to take the leap from traditional to cutting-edge, reaching beyond static product displays to something much more dynamic.
Making your showroom more interactive is a powerful way to capture customer attention and drive sales. With the right visualization platform, you can help customers bridge the imagination gap, explore endless design possibilities, and streamline your sales process. Enter CPQ visualization.
CPQ visualization explained
CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) visualization technology allows you to configure products visually, in real-time, generating instant pricing and quotes based on a customer’s onscreen selections. Instead of replacing traditional in-store (and online) selling models, CPQ visualization enhances what’s already there to create more captivating customer experiences.
“Visual representation is crucial for customers, allowing them to experiment with various options and customize their furniture step-by-step to their liking.”
– Van Wolfswinkel Wonen, Barneveld
Every furniture showroom is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for CPQ visualization. In simple terms, you insert a layer of visualization technology over the top of your existing setup to add value for customers and your business.
From improving the customer experience to speeding up quotations, CPQ visualization has the potential to revolutionize your furniture brand. Want to know how? Read our post on 10 Benefits Of Visual CPQ For Furniture Brands Uncovered.
5 ways to transform your furniture showroom
There are different approaches to CPQ visualization. The right one for you depends on the products you sell, your business model, and your approach to selling. Here are 5 innovative approaches for implementing it in your showroom:
Interactive kiosks, computers, or tablets
Set up tablet or computer stations within your showroom where customers can explore 3D visualizations of furniture, customize options such as fabrics, colors, and sizes, and see real-time pricing updates based on their selections.
Room planning service
Give salespeople and customers a room planning tool that allows them to create digital layouts of rooms, enabling them to place and arrange different pieces of furniture within a virtual representation of their space. It helps customers visualize how various furniture items will look in their homes, and it gives salespeople the opportunity to upsell related products.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Make AR available to customers so they can visualize how different pieces of furniture will look in their own homes by overlaying digital models onto their physical space using a smartphone or tablet camera.
Salesperson assistance
Equip sales staff with CPQ visualization tools on phones, tablets, or laptops, so they can guide customers through the configuration process, make real-time adjustments, and provide immediate pricing, and availability information (by connecting to your ERP system).
Integration with e-commerce platforms
Extend your tech-driven showroom experience online and integrate the CPQ visualization tools into your e-commerce website, allowing online shoppers to customize products, view them in 3D, and receive instant quotes.
The great thing about iONE360’s award-winning platform is that it can drive CPQ visualization to every touchpoint. Whether in-store or online, your CPQ visualization tools are underpinned by a single platform.
“The 3D configurator offers an interactive experience for customers, increasing their engagement in the purchasing process. Moreover, it helps dealers guide customers in making the right choices and addressing any concerns through immediate visualization.”
– Van Wolfswinkel Wonen, Barneveld
Visualize and configure a specific product type
If you specialize in selling a specific type of furniture – such as office chairs or sofas – or you want to enhance the selling process for a particular product range, then a 3D product configurator is a great starting point for CPQ visualization. Here’s why.
Quickly configure and quote
Powered by 3D models, business rules, and pricing rules, a product configurator helps streamline the sales process and puts product configuration and dynamic pricing in the hands of your customers and salespeople. Whether at home via an app, in-store at a kiosk, or through a salesperson’s laptop, customers can create and cost their perfect furniture item in moments.
Guide decision-making
A product configurator lets customers see their selections – from material and finishes to dimensions and accessories – in realistic 3D, before they hit the order button. With CPQ visualization, they also get real-time updates on pricing based on their chosen options. This helps to streamline, support, and guide their decision-making toward making a purchase.
Deliver what customers want
Being able to cost and configure their ideal piece of furniture, means customers are more likely to be satisfied with the finished product when it arrives at their home. That leads to happy customers and fewer returns.
Speed up quotation and sales
With all your product variations faithfully reproduced in high-definition 3D, you no longer need to keep every variant on display, saving you valuable floor space. It also makes it much quicker to quote: the customers and/or salesperson make the selection and the price updates automatically. Find the right combination for their budget and you’re good to go.
Want to know more about product configurators? We’ve put everything you need to know in a handy guide: The Ultimate Guide To Product Configurators For Furniture Brands
Give customers the full interior design experience
If you stock multiple configurable products that you’d like to enhance with CPQ visualization, then a 3D room planner is a great option. In fact, a room planner tool takes CPQ visualization to the next level.
Not only does it allow users to configure a product within a realistic setting – even a virtual 3D representation of a room in a customer’s actual home – it can combine and configure different products, with integrated pricing. For that reason, a room planner is a powerful way to give customers a more personalized interior design experience, as opposed to promoting a single product type.
The business benefits are also compelling. Here are 5 reasons to add it to your stores:
Boost buyer confidence
Seeing a complete, furnished room virtually reduces uncertainty and boosts confidence in purchasing decisions.
Enhance the shopping experience
Add your room planner to online channels, creating cohesion and making it effortless for customers to add visualized items to their cart.
Upsell complementary products
Suggest complementary furniture and decor items that match the existing selections in the planner.
User-generated content
Encourage customers to share their room designs on social media, leveraging user-generated content for marketing purposes.
Inventory management
Use room planner data to inform inventory decisions, so popular items are well-stocked.
Market-leading CPQ visualization from iONE360
Whichever way you choose to deploy visual CPQ in your stores, iONE360 provides the perfect platform for all your 3D models, visualization tools, data, and integrations.
Our robust yet flexible platform has been designed with furniture companies in mind. Having served the furniture industry for more than 40 years, the company behind iONE360 – Colijn IT is a market specialist. So you can rest assured that all our visualization tools – from room planners to Augmented Reality (AR) apps – are furniture-friendly.
So, if you’re planning to transform your showrooms and sales processes with CPQ visualization, iONE360 is the obvious choice.