For kitchen retailers to step above the crowd, here is a five-stage checklist for getting the most out of your 3D planning investment.

So, you have made the decision to adopt a 3D planning solution and gain a competitive edge in the crowded kitchen retail market. Implementing the solution and integrating it with existing systems is the main – and perhaps most important – step. But it’s not the only one to get the most out of the technology and unlock its full potential to drive engagement and increase conversions.

 

For kitchen retailers to step above the crowd, here is a five-stage checklist for getting the most out of your 3D planning investment – from implementation to successful integration:

 

1. Digitize products in 3D

 

Your retail product catalog has to be photographed and rendered in the format that your chosen 3D platform requires. The best approach for getting this right is to carefully choose a 3D rendering partner. Check their experience and ask if they have a pre-existing end-to-end process for digitally rendering complex product lines.

 

This is important for any type of retail but is fundamentally crucial for the kitchen retail industry, where the accuracy of each product and its given measurements is essential. Get this right and it will underpin the rest of this checklist, making overall implementation much easier. Some platforms, such as the HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers 3D planning solution, will recommend pre-approved partners to ensure error-free product digitization. Be sure to check for this in the first instance – it could help avoid headaches down the line.

 

2. Take those products and create design sets

 

Modern 3D planning solutions are designed with the user experience in mind. They make it easy to upload 3D product shots into the platform once they are ready. This is a vital step, of course, but you shouldn’t stop there. Uploading digitized versions of your products is only one part of the process. The next is to create pre-built design sets, which will help streamline the kitchen creation process for customers.

 

A design set is the group of products such as hob, drawer, or faucet that, when put together, make a model kitchen. These are important online for the same reason they are in-store: some customers will want to design a kitchen from scratch but won’t know where to start or what style of kitchen they want. Design sets can solve this problem, bridging the imagination gap.

 

Design sets are a good starting point for immersing customers in 3D planning and encouraging deeper personalization as they swap out products from pre-built sets to create the kitchen of their dreams.

 

3. Optimize the website for 3D design engagement

 

The adage goes: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? Well, the same applies to 3D planning technology. If your 3D planning solution exists but it isn’t readily accessible on the website, is it of any use to your customers?

 

Customers need to be guided through the sales process, and that starts at the very beginning of their journey, before they head in-store, which can be encouraged with a 3D planning solution. Your team will need to think carefully about where to put product viewers on the website so customers can visualize a product in 3D and use it in their kitchen designs if they so choose.

 

Beyond each product page, consider embedding a product viewer in areas of your website that generate the most traffic. A good place to start is to analyze data from the website via Google Analytics, to find the pages that get the most traffic. Embedding the product viewer and 3D design solution on these pages greatly enhances the customer experience.

 

This approach can also draw customers into an engagement loop as they browse through the website. A potential customer seeing a 3D product shot or a design set could be interested to learn more, becoming invested in the kitchen retailer’s purchase cycle after following a link to use the 3D planning solution.

 

4. Integrate online and offline

 

One of the advantages of the HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers 3D planning solution is that customers can use it to access their designs on numerous devices and 24×7 to ensure an omnichannel experience. For those that start their journeys online, this allows them to work on their designs in their own time and make an educated decision about how to progress from there, before seeking validation in-store.

 

For this reason, it is important to arm your in-store sales team with this technology, too, as well as prospects that start their sales journey offline. Whether a design is created at home or in-store, customers can share access with a sales professional so that they can answer any questions, provide design advice, and give demonstrations. This allows the customer to get the best out of the platform, and frees up more time for sales professionals to spend with qualified leads further along the sales cycle.

 

5. Build 3D planning into the sales and marketing strategy

 

As you have undoubtedly found from your research, the benefits of a 3D platform for kitchen retailers extends beyond what they can do for customers from a design perspective. These solutions are also a goldmine for data insights that can be used to discover what products are popular and what are not. Armed with this knowledge, product catalogs can be edited accordingly and products tailor recommended based on customer insights, helping to create a more personalized experience.

 

3D platform data can also help kitchen retailers to stay competitive. Data can help product buyers make better purchasing decisions and optimize the supply chain, which in turn will increase sales and profitability. This ties back to the benefit of being able to identify and predict trends, which will bubble to the surface naturally through more users of the 3D planning solution.

 

Conclusion

 

3D planning solutions offer value no matter how much is invested into customizing them for your customers. But, there’s a difference between implementation and successful roll out – and the difference can be found in five key stages. For kitchen retailers to get the maximum impact out of their investment in this technology, a 3D planning solution is required that can address them all.