Everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint. But finding the right colour for your room? Easier said than done.
“Shopping for paint can be painful,” said Murtaza Abedin, vice president of product at Roomvo. “It’s similar to a lot of home decor products, where you need to make decisions based on imagination. You can get small swatches, or paint part of your wall with a sample. But picking the right colour requires a lot of time, patience, and skill.”
The fear of getting it wrong can put homeowners off redecorating for months, even years. In fact, many repainting projects get canned altogether. For manufacturers and retailers, that’s a problem because it prevents more paint purchases.
That’s where Roomvo comes in. By showing how paint looks in the home before purchase, Roomvo’s room visualizer gives customers the confidence to pick a colour and crack the tin on their repainting project.
Now, with several innovations that launched last week, Roomvo’s new and improved paint visualizer is more realistic than ever. Offering the smoothest, best-looking experience available, Roomvo’s paint visualizer helps shoppers make quicker, better-informed decisions. For retailers and manufacturers, that means more sales, more loyalty, and more referrals.
Realistic colour change
Building a more realistic visualizer required a whole new approach to paint — as well as new technology.
“We’re thinking about paint in a new way,” said Abedin. “With paint, you’re not replacing the wall or covering over it like with tile or wallpaper. Your wall is still there. Our visualizer now represents shadows more accurately, maintains more features of the wall, and deals with curved and imperfect walls better.”
With more accurate imagery, shoppers build greater confidence in the visualizer and their choice of paint.
Multi-wall visualization
Roomvo makes it easy for shoppers to apply multiple colours to different walls in the same room. For shoppers, multi-wall visualization opens up a ton of new design possibilities.
“For example, in my home, we were deciding what colour to paint the accent wall — or whether to have one at all,” said Abedin. “And so it wasn’t just picking a colour that looks good, but two colours that work with each other and your home. Seeing the options visualized made it a lot easier.”
Realistic visualization gets tricky with multiple walls and darker colours, especially when combining dark shades with light. Roomvo maintains the accuracy, presenting a realistic simulation of the finished product.
From matte to high gloss
While selecting a new colour palette is certainly part of the fun, choosing the right paint finish, or sheen, is key to achieving a polished, long-lasting result.
“Being able to show glossiness or different finishes is very important,” said Abedin. “So whether it’s matte, eggshell, satin, or high gloss, we’re now able to maintain that look better in the visualizer.”
Different sheens interact with light differently, so it’s important to show how each sheen will look in each particular room. Roomvo makes it easy for shoppers to pick the right finish, with much greater accuracy than any other visualizer available.
High-resolution rendering
With details like shadows, texture and sheen now more realistic than ever, it’s important to let shoppers see these details clearly.
As such, the Roomvo team set out to enable high-resolution renderings that make it possible for shoppers to zoom in close while maintaining the speed Roomvo is renowned for.
“We wanted really high-quality, high-resolution renderings that you can zoom into and see the detail,” said Abedin. “That’s not necessarily difficult to do, but it is difficult to do quickly.”
It takes time to download high-quality images, particularly on mobile devices. Shoppers look at 15 to 20 products at a time when using Roomvo, and waiting a long time for each one to appear would make it a painful experience. So the Roomvo team got creative.
“Now, we render twice. First we render at a lower resolution, which gets to the shopper’s device very quickly. Then we render at a much higher resolution, and seamlessly transition the user into that higher resolution experience. When you zoom in, you get this really crisp image that looks fantastic.”
Good for business
For paint retailers and manufacturers, making decisions easier for shoppers is Roomvo’s number one benefit. By enabling personalized, interactive experiences, Roomvo makes it fun to explore and narrow down options.
“If shoppers are unsure about where to start, they might never get to the end of the journey,” said Abedin. “But if we can help them explore and aid their imagination, they’re going to be much more likely to take the next step and visit the showroom.”
Transforming the in-store experience
When shoppers reach the showroom, Roomvo can give them the confidence to purchase with new in-store visualization technology.
Launched last month, Roomvo Kiosk is built specifically for a touchscreen terminal. Designed to foster both in-store collaboration and self-serve experiences, the kiosk allows customers to see paint in their homes without leaving the showroom.
“It enables collaboration between families and with sales reps, who can help you make a decision about a particular colour for your space,” said Abedin. “Seeing the paint visualized in their room can give customers the extra bit of confidence they need to make a decision while in-store.”
Roomvo makes picking paint easier for shoppers, so they will come back for more. Shoppers painting their living room may get emboldened to also paint other rooms that they were initially going to put off.
Quicker, better-informed purchase decisions
Decisions, ultimately, are what it all comes down to. How can Roomvo help customers make better-informed purchase decisions, and how quickly can that happen?
“Ultimately, shoppers don’t really care about the technology,” said Abedin. “What they really care about is how the paint will look in their room, and how fast they can make that happen. Shoppers want a clean, helpful experience and to try as many designs as possible, so that they’re certain when they make a decision.”
To learn more about how Roomvo can help your customers make quicker, better-informed purchase decisions, book a demo with our team.
