Discover the ways a 3D planning solution can help home retailers make the most of the holiday period and sustain engagement in the New Year.

Flash sales and discounts are now a common occurrence from late October to mid-January. What was once a time-limited period of high-volume sales has become a two-to-three-month extravaganza that consumers have come to expect. Some will even hold off on making purchases until the sales come around. This should be no surprise when 30% of all annual retail sales occur between Black Friday and Christmas.

The festive season is also a great opportunity to get customers thinking about home renovation. Whether they are watching movies picturing the ‘dream home’ or hosting gatherings that are a reminder of where space is lacking, public holidays and celebratory days are a catalyst for design decisions. Yet holidays have a value that goes beyond the event itself. For home retailers in particular, there is more than one way they can get consumers ‘through the door’.

So, with the festive season almost upon us, now is the perfect time to reflect on how home retailers can make the most of holiday periods to reach customers in a fun way. And in what ways this can sow the seeds for full-scale redesign projects after that.

Before we can talk about tapping into key occasions, though, we need to address how and why home retailers must engage consumers on a deeper level in 2022.

Building sustainable consumer engagement in home retail

Engagement is the currency of the internet. Social networks measure their success on it and thrive by encouraging users to keep coming back for more. Granted, home retailers aren’t Facebook. But there are valuable lessons that can be taken from how the social media giant operates to stay front of mind with its userbase. And those lessons can be applied to digital-savvy buyers in our sector.

In today’s low-attention economy, engagement is a metric of high importance to all types of businesses. In the home retail sector, this means doing a better job of engaging consumers when they’re on your site. Traffic will always be essential, but engaged customers are more likely to buy, become repeat customers, and share their experiences with other people. The stats support this too. A repeat customer has a 60-70% chance of converting. This means that the more repeat buyers you have, the less you will need to invest in last minute offers and other conversion strategies.

Social networks provide users with the tools to share content and convey their personalities online. In the same way, home retailers must drive engagement by giving potential customers the solutions to be creative. As technology changes our expectations for the world of retail, and as younger demographics start their home design journeys, creating a home design experience that is tech-centric and immersive is vital. This not only helps to get consumers through the door – whether that’s to a physical store or the online equivalent – but as a mechanism to stick in their minds and become a staple feature for future home design needs.

Balancing practicality with creativity

Making this a success depends on having the right approach to 3D planning. After all, despite home design being a major event, it can also be a stressful experience for many. Consumers will sometimes adopt a DIY approach. But that means they must balance practicality with creativity, which can be difficult. Applying a 3D planning solution can mitigate this by offering the best of both – a DIWM (Do-It-With-Me) approach that delivers a blend of automated support and on-hand expertise at the exact point customers need it. At the same time, 3D planning offers benefits that can help retailers further capitalize on key holidays.

The right 3D planning technology can bring the in-store experience to online shopping. It’s an easy way for consumers to keep the convenience and low-pressure benefits of the DIWM  approach without risks. They can explore a retailer’s product catalog at their own pace and in their own home, choosing items they like and building their own home designs in a 3D environment.

The functionality of a 3D planning solution such as HomeByMe for Home Retailers makes it easy for consumers and retailers to work in tandem. It’s possible to leverage the expertise of in-store staff to provide guidance and validation, either in person or online, with user profiles that are accessible across different devices. This caters to both the creativity and practicality requirements of today’s digital-savvy buyers.

Tapping into the holiday calendar

Home improvements are for life, not just for Christmas. But once retailers have the right engagement strategy in place, they should be using key occasions in the calendar as a trigger to kick-start that journey.

Holiday periods throughout the year are valuable drivers for sales leads. Whether that’s encouraging consumers to mock up temporary redesigns of their home at Thanksgiving, getting spooky at Halloween, or creative at Easter. Each holiday on the calendar represents an opportunity to bring customers back into the fold beyond existing sales efforts.

3D design lowers the barrier to entry and helps consumers ease into the first and most important phase of the process – planning. These solutions have become essential for getting qualified leads through the door and into a retailer’s ecosystem during the holidays. And, because the latest solutions support user-generated content and provide social sharing functionality out of the box, this creates another touchpoint for potential customers to access a source of inspiration. 

Enhancing design enjoyment for customers

By integrating the right 3D planning solution into their omnichannel strategies, retailers can enhance design experiences for consumers in a way that blends the necessary practical considerations with creative fun. Some of these customers may not convert straight away. But by introducing deeper engagement to their omnichannel offerings, home retailers can better capitalize on key holidays and extend the value of the period, increasing the likelihood of purchases from previous and potential customers later in the year.

In today’s hyper-competitive retail landscape, this is more important than it has ever been. A 3D planning solution allows retailers to strike a balance of inspiration, planning, and professional support for their customers. At the same time, it injects a healthy dose of seasonal timeliness that can keep them coming back for more.