Marble, ceramic or porcelain? Standing in their kitchen with a handful of samples, your customer struggles to choose their new tile flooring.
It’s a situation familiar to many homeowners, whether they’re trying to pick the perfect shade of paint for the dining room or the ideal rug to match their living room decor. Surely there’s a way to make home renovation easier?
Enter the Roomvo visualizer, a digital tool that enables customers to see products in their homes, instantly. Customers simply snap a photo of their room, upload it to the visualizer, and swipe through products to see which looks best. Once the customer has found their match, they head to the store to make their purchase.
So how does it work?
Roomvo is powered by augmented reality (AR), a technology that’s transforming the way people plan their home renovations – and opening up a world of possibilities for manufacturers, distributors, and retailers of all sizes.
What is augmented reality?
Augmented reality blurs the line between reality and the digital world, bringing virtual objects into real-world spaces.
While virtual reality completely replaces your reality, augmented reality adds to it, projecting imagery onto what you’re already seeing. Instead of trying to imagine how a new painting will look over your couch, AR shows you in real time.
And, while virtual reality requires the use of a headset or special glasses, augmented reality works with your cell phone or computer screen alone. This accessibility presents huge opportunities for retailers and manufacturers, allowing customers to enter an immersive AR experience through a QR code on a product display or a link on your online catalog.
How can AR benefit retailers and manufacturers?
By offering customers an instant, immersive experience, retailers and manufacturers can expect better engagement, more interaction with products, higher conversions, increased sales, greater brand loyalty, and fewer product returns.
In a neurological study on the effects of AR on the brain, researchers found that AR experiences deliver almost double the visual attention compared to non-AR experiences. AR was found to create a more surprising and emotionally powerful experience, leading to study participants recalling 70 percent more of the information they engaged with.
What does greater engagement mean for your business?
By achieving greater engagement, AR technology encourages your customers to form a deeper connection with your products and brand.
Plus, in the home decor industry, customers spend twice as long on websites when using Roomvo, having fun while experimenting with different designs.
By lengthening interaction time and enabling a deeper connection with your products, Roomvo moves shoppers along the funnel at a faster pace, shortening the buying cycle and creating quicker sales for your business.
If that’s not enough, Roomvo instills greater confidence in the customer’s purchase decision by allowing them to see their renovations before they buy. Retailers and manufacturers have achieved up to five times their usual conversions when using Roomvo, which ultimately leads to more sales.
Roomvo is an effective closing tool, too. Whether in the showroom or the customer’s home, pulling up the visualizer on a mobile device is a great way to move a sale over the line.
Set yourself apart from the competition
Still not seeing the benefit? In an industry with comparable brands and products, offering Roomvo as a service can help set you apart from the competition. 61 percent of consumers prefer shopping at stores that offer AR over ones that don’t, giving customers incentive to choose your business over others, as well as a reason to keep coming back.
While you can expect more customers returning to your business, you can expect fewer returns of your products. As shoppers have already visualized their new flooring, rugs, wallpaper, countertops and more in place, there are no surprises once the work is done.
What’s not to love about room visualizers?
Despite these benefits, some retailers and manufacturers are hesitant to make room visualizers a part of their sales and marketing strategy.
Manufacturers may fear a drop in engagement if an app download is required. Retailers may worry about sending customers to a website where their competitors are also advertised. Small businesses might worry about grappling with an additional platform and a lack of internal expertise.
Thankfully, there’s no need to worry about any of these issues with Roomvo. No app download is required with Roomvo’s web-based AR platform, as customers can use the visualizer on their browser. Customers never leave the manufacturer or retailer’s website, so there’s no danger of losing business to the competition. Finally, with a dedicated support team to help guide you through every step, a lack of know-how is no barrier to entry. Roomvo can even build a customized site for you.
How to make the most of AR technology
To get the most from AR technology, make sure to promote Roomvo at every customer touchpoint.
Digitally, you can link to Roomvo on your website in your e-newsletter, email signature, SMS messages, social media posts, blog posts, and digital ads. If you’re advertising on TV, you can include a QR code on the end bumper that links directly to your website.
Speaking of QR codes, make sure to include them throughout any of your physical stores. You can attach QR codes to signage and product displays, allowing the customer to pull up Roomvo with their cell phone. You can make it even easier for customers to access Roomvo in-store by installing kiosks with tablet computers attached.
Next, consider what action you would like your customer to perform after using Roomvo, and adapt your call-to-action (CTA) accordingly. Manufacturers, for instance, can promote a link to “Find a Retailer”, while retailers can encourage customers to “Book an In-store Consultation”, “Book a Measuring Appointment”, or, for e-commerce sites, “Add to Cart.”
Finally, when the visualizer is up-and-running, make sure to track all the data it provides and use it to optimize. With Roomvo Pro, you can see how many clicks you’re getting on different products and how many views lead to sales. By tracking this kind of data, you can gain insight into customer preferences before shoppers even purchase.
Future-proof your business
With all these benefits, it’s easy to see why Roomvo is becoming a must-have in the home decor industry and beyond. Is your business future-ready?
