How 3D Virtual Showrooms Are Empowering Furniture Companies
Office Furniture Companies Are Making 3D Virtual Showrooms a Reality
Interior furnishing companies, product manufacturers, and retailers have built their business models on in-person interactions by facilitating sales environments such as showrooms and storefronts, where customers can readily view, touch and test products to assess design, fit and materiality.
Customer behaviors have long been changing, however, with most doing their research online and many making purchasing decisions without even walking into an actual showroom. That’s why companies who are looking to lower their brick and mortar real estate costs are expanding their online capacity by expanding their virtual real estate through 3D virtual showrooms.
In this article, we’ll cover the importance of providing context and visualization for furniture products, the limits of physical showrooms, and the opportunities presented by investing in virtual real estate.
The Importance of Context and Visualization
Interior furnishing companies, product manufacturers, and retailers have built their business models on in-person interactions by facilitating sales environments such as showrooms and storefronts, where customers can readily view, touch and test products to assess design, fit and materiality.
Customer behaviors have long been changing, however, with most doing their research online and many making purchasing decisions without even walking into an actual showroom. That’s why companies who are looking to lower their brick and mortar real estate costs are expanding their online capacity by expanding their virtual real estate through 3D virtual showrooms.
In this article, we’ll cover the importance of providing context and visualization for furniture products, the limits of physical showrooms, and the opportunities presented by investing in virtual real estate.
Physical Showrooms Have Their Limitations
As a supplier of furnishings, you’re going to have to rely on designers and architects to advocate your products to their customers so they can become your clients too. Having a designer and the client in your showroom will be key.
Sometimes, your client may have their own facility resources on hand and take the initiative themselves. Or you may be bidding on a project and part of the process could be a site visit or mock-up space for the client. That’s why an office furniture company will want to provide an immersive experience to position their products above the competition.
However, due to safety protocols and apprehension caused by the pandemic, furniture manufacturers and their dealers have found it more challenging to bring people into their showrooms.
This has led to a reduction in real estate as digital communications have become increasingly important. It has also spawned a virtual expansion of real estate as companies use technology to extend their experiences beyond physical walls.
The New Real Estate Frontier is Virtual
Virtual showrooms are the new real estate frontier. Almost every industry has gained efficiencies and enticed more customers by casting a wider net through technology enablement. The furniture industry, steeped in tradition, is now catching up.
Through office furniture renderings that mimic real life, companies like Tektus, are generating experiences that rival in-person showroom visits.
Sure, the touch and feel part of it can never be replicated (at least not yet). However, a 3D virtual showroom can help furniture companies get in front of their customers and design partners by offering easy access to their products.
Catalogs and online shopping engines may partially satisfy the consumer retail industry, but office furnishings need to provide context and it needs to be interactive.
Customers need to navigate different settings to see what looks good, to see applicable products in their ‘natural’ design environment, and to imagine what it might look like in their own space.
Benefits of Virtual Showrooms
Virtual showrooms are not a replacement for the physical, but they can serve as an extension of the customer experience. These are some of the benefits that bringing your showrooms online can bring
Virtual Showrooms Extend Time and Place for Customer Engagement
Virtual real estate companies are now using photo realism and high quality true-to-life renderings of products and other solutions within virtual showrooms.
These digital landscapes can be created and customized to reflect the brand and design preferences of organizations that are progressively using virtual space at a fraction of the cost of physical space.
Virtual showrooms can be any shape, size or style, and they can supplement physical spaces allowing customers another way to interact with products in an environment that reflects your brand.
Giving customers the opportunity to visit your virtual space anytime they wish makes ‘office hours’ a thing of the past. The web experience also delivers greater control to visitors enabling them to navigate and travel through your showroom space to view finishes and identify products that meet their design criteria.
Finally, by extending your space from the physical showroom to a virtual one, customers will recognize your business as progressive given technology enablement has become an organizational priority.
Virtual Showrooms Deliver More Choice and Control For Dealers
Whether you’re focused on delivering product solutions to corporate office, healthcare, education or hospitality customers, virtual showrooms can provide a supplemental marketing and sales platform to engage your employees and customers. Here are just some benefits of virtual showrooms:
Ease of Access
Customers are doing online research to determine what products are right for them, so making your products easily accessible wherever and whenever removes limits that characterize brick and mortar operations.
Training Platform
Employers can use a multitude of virtual platforms to nurture interaction between office and remote employees.
Virtual showroom environments can help bridge the hybrid realities of work by bringing sales training online and making it far more interactive than a traditional Zoom or Teams call. Integrate avatars of your trainers into the mix or simply showcase new products in mockup spaces.
Ecommerce Revenue
Virtual showrooms facilitate interaction between customers and your products within a customized environment. For customers that have specific product needs, integrating an eCommerce engine within your virtual environment can immediately expand your ability to sell your solutions while providing your customers with unmatched convenience.
Enhanced Flexibility
Virtual showrooms deliver enhanced flexibility for companies looking to rotate products or introduce new product lines. In the live environment, this requires placing purchase orders, delivery and installation requirements, and internal resources to move products in a showroom.
The virtual showroom can make this happen more seamlessly and expediently by making changes on the fly and reflecting them online.
Cost Savings
Physical showrooms remain important, yet they require a substantial capital outlay. They often require larger open spaces so guests can experience them within design-friendly environments.
The cost of real estate, especially in urban centers, remains high. While still necessary to touch and feel new products in a live environment, virtual showrooms can supplement that experience and broaden the selection of company offerings. They can also act as the first contact, enticing prospective clients to come to the physical showroom.
A Virtual Real Estate Company Can Help You Adapt to the Future
Visualizing is a core component of the showroom experience. With virtual showrooms, furniture companies can engage clients outside of business hours to support work anywhere and anytime. Customers can engage at their own convenience and if they like what they see and want to move to the touchy-feely part, they are already on their way
The preference for online purchasing is likely here to stay and that means that customer and employee engagement needs to be facilitated both in-person and remotely. Integrating a virtual showroom into your marketing and sales strategy will help future-proof the day-to-day operations of your company, delivering a multi-modal approach to customer engagement.
A virtual real estate company can help you adapt to a changing future and open up new opportunities while protecting your bottom line. For more information on building your own customized virtual showroom, contact the experts at Tektus today.