How Can Furniture Manufacturers Benefit from Using an Online Product Configurator

When marketing and selling furniture online, today’s companies are presented with unique challenges that they would not encounter when selling offline. The challenge primarily lies in the way interactions change when communicating with customers online. Consequently, selling products online requires companies to come up with unique experiences to fulfill the users’ expectations. Your target audience is constantly bombarded with digital clutter, and only the most advanced strategies will be successful in breaking through that clutter to captivate your customers’ attention.

What is today’s online consumer really looking to experience, and how can you deliver? Today’s consumer expects customized products that meet their specific needs. They want to be able to choose attributes such as color, size, shape, features, and technical details of the product, enabling them to configure a tailor-made solution. Besides, today’s consumers need to feel empowered when making choices based on their unique requirements. As a seller, you need to be able to make your buyer feel empowered. You need to facilitate an easy buying process for the consumer and an equally easier mode of viewing and customizing furniture when selling online. This will ensure your sales numbers increase exponentially. This can be achieved through an online product configurator tool, making it possible for sellers to provide their buyers with a real-time product customization experience.

The use of this tool in the furniture industry is particularly well-established. Sellers in the industry have been able to drive sales and grow their business by selling online with the use of online product configurators. While several furniture manufacturers swear by the utility of online product configurators, the benefits of implementing it cannot be underestimated.

Let’s explore these benefits a bit further.

Makes the Sales Process Shorter and Less Challenging

The steeply rising demand for personalized furniture fundamentally implies that several pieces are made-to-order. In the absence of a good online product configurator, the different variants of every piece of furniture can contribute to a far lengthier and more challenging customer buying experience. If a customer is also subjected to countless back-and-forth calls with a sales rep, the frustration of this process may result in the customer giving up on the idea of purchasing from you and lead them to look for a different manufacturer. The shorter the sales process is, the easier it is to retain the customer and guarantee their satisfaction with the final product. Also, the elimination of additional steps in the buying process will be effective in eliminating expensive and unnecessary order errors.

Lets Customers Customize Their Furniture

The chief function of an online product customization tool is to enable the customer to visualize the same product they want. Whether they want a patterned sofa with an L-shaped sectional or a simple coffee table with defined edges, the online product configuration enables them to see exactly how the piece of furniture will look. Another important point to understand is that giving the customer the option to visually assemble the furniture they want will keep them far more interested in the sales process when compared to talking to a sales executive.

Offers Real-time Pricing

With a product configurator installed on your eCommerce website, rather than waiting for hours, days or even weeks to get a final quote for the product they want, the customers can see the cost of each piece of furniture in real-time. A good product configurator could also allow customers to see the features that can be added to a particular piece of furniture and at what cost. This offers an immediate opportunity for upselling and cross-selling in the form of add-on features, promotional offers, and product bundles.

Enhances Quote Accuracy

A product configurator facilitates the automation of many steps involved in the quoting process, leaving limited space for human error or miscommunication. As soon as the customer inputs his choices and data into the product configurator, immediate quote updates are made. Also, available and unavailable features for the chosen configurations would be highlighted.

Efficient Process That Eliminates Confusion

The system of rules and validations available in certain product configurators helps in the reduction of errors that occur through the quoting and ordering process. This ensures there is no miscommunication or confusion for your customers. As a result, furniture manufacturers reduce errors and enhance the efficiency of the process by a substantial percentage.

Reduced Training Costs

The intuitive interface of product configurator software can also help companies reduce sales training costs by a large margin. Your sales executives will be equipped enough to commence selling the moment they walk through the door.

An online product configurator is also a 360 Product Viewer, which can help furniture manufacturers provide an enhanced buying experience to their customers. The above-mentioned benefits make it quite clear that the significance of an online product configurator for furniture manufacturers are unparalleled.

If you’re planning on utilizing an online product configurator for your furniture business, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to assist!