How to bring furniture selection into the home

DECISION STORY · MOSCOW · 2013–2014

Bring furniture selection into the home

I wanted people to choose furniture in detail at home and visit the showroom to place their order. The website needed to answer the questions buyers normally explore while examining furniture on display.

Where the idea came from

At a meeting with furniture company executives, I saw a large catalogue of Italian furniture interiors: a velvet cover and glossy A2 pages. My immediate reaction was: “I want this.” I started looking for a way to convey that impression through the website.

I checked visitors’ devices and screen resolutions in analytics. My observation at the time was that most viewed the site on high-resolution all-in-one computers. Buyers could examine interiors on a large screen. This gave me a reason to experiment with image size.

First, observe how people choose in the showroom

I observed that travelling between Moscow furniture shops tired buyers: visiting more than two showrooms in a day was difficult. I spent several weeks watching how people examined furniture and what they did before deciding to buy. I then used these observations to inform the website.

The question went beyond image size: what should people be able to see and learn at home so that visiting the shop becomes the final step in their choice?

What we changed on the website

We published the new, expensive Milana cabinet furniture collection by Pinskdrev with very high-resolution photographs. Zooming in revealed small details of the furniture sets. The information and detailed images were intended to let people explore the offer before travelling.

How I noticed behaviour changing

Sales followed publication of the collection. I particularly remember buyers arriving with printouts and showing exactly what they wanted to order. I recall people travelling and flying to the Moscow shop from other regions of Russia to buy furniture.

These are qualitative observations from my practice. They showed that people used the website to make a preliminary choice. I do not provide a separate quantitative estimate of the photographs’ contribution to sales here.

What another business can take from this

Start by observing how people choose the product away from the website. What actions do they repeat, which details do they examine, and what information do they travel to obtain? Then decide which parts of that choice can move online. Image size was a solution for this particular context; the transferable approach is to reconstruct the decision process and provide the missing information.

How buyers determine product value → (RU)