Kitchen design and remodeling services—and the sale of kitchen retail goods to support them—

are entering a watershed period in which the traditional in-store design and buying paradigm is evolving. Today, customers that are designing a new kitchen, or remodeling an existing one, are not only seeking online purchasing options but are also increasingly wanting to design and visualize their new kitchen online, to gain a better visual understanding of how their new or re-designed kitchen will look. This emerging trend represents a real opportunity for kitchen retailers to grow your business, boost sales, and increase profit margins through the establishment of an effective omnichannel with the HomeByMe® for Kitchen Retailers 3D kitchen design, rendering, and ordering solution. This paper will examine the changing nature of the kitchen design and how kitchen retailers can take advantage of these changes to grow your business with the HomeByMe suite of retail solutions.

 

IMPROVING THE KITCHEN DESIGN/REMODELING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IS GOOD BUSINESS FOR KITCHEN RETAILERS

Although new residential construction—and the need to outfit new kitchens—accounts for a portion of kitchen retail sales, the kitchen remodeling market is projected to explode in the coming years and drive an increasingly larger portion of total kitchen retail sales. As the cost of land and new construction continues to go up, more and more consumers are opting to either renovate their existing homes, and kitchens, or do the same on the purchase of an existing house, instead of building new. According to the “Remodeling market” research report by Global Market Insights, Inc, a global market research and management consulting company, the global overall residential remodeling market is projected to increase from $2 trillion (US) in 2017 to $2.8 trillion(US) by 2024. The global residential interior remodeling market, of which kitchens are the largest segment (bathrooms are second), is projected to grow from $714 billion (US) in 2017 to over $1 trillion (US) by 2024, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4 percent per year.

While these market projections and trends signal business opportunities for kitchen retailers, they also present challenges. Just as brick-and-mortar retailers have had to establish effective ecommerce operations to survive, kitchen retailers that want to maintain and expand share in this growing market need to incorporate an effective online omnichannel to market and sell both kitchen design/remodeling services and retail goods. The traditional in-store kitchen design and retail sales approach is gradually being supplanted by online or web-to-store processes that improve the overall customer experience. This change is occurring partly because the traditional approach can be tedious, time-consuming, and costly, and partly because the characteristics of the kitchen remodel customer are changing.
With the unlimited access to information afforded by the web, today’s consumers are more conscious of available styles and options, and are more comfortable operating in a digital environment. This is especially true for millenials, who have grown up with computer technology and prefer using online design tools to support web-to-store purchases. The growth of do-it-yourselfers (DIYers)—consumers who would rather learn how to do something and do it themselves than pay someone to do it—also points to the need for a digital omnichannel option to capture business outside of the traditional brick-and-mortar-store-only approach.
The term “omnichannel” denotes a retail channel that integrates all of the different shopping methods available to consumers, including online-only, in-store, and web-to-store by allowing you to access your project wherever you are. For kitchen retailers, omnichannel sales and marketing demands agile, flexible tools for customers to design their kitchen remodel in 3D, select/change items in the design, visualize a photorealistic rendering of the remodel design, generate an automated proposal based on the design, and purchase the items, either online or in-store.

For your kitchen retail omnichannel to be effective, it must be easy to use, both by consumers, who use design/layout, visualization, automated proposal generation, and purchasing tools online, and sales professionals, who use the same tools in consultation with customers in the store. By using a browser-based omnichannel application like HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers, you can support your omnichannel audience on multiple platforms, including computer desktops and hand-held tablets. You can even create an in-store kiosk that lets customers test-drive their HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers generated kitchen designs.
The key factor in retaining and growing market share in the evolving kitchen remodel market is to leverage 3D design, visualization, and ecommerce technologies to implement an affordable, effective omnichannel that dramatically improves the kitchen remodel customer experience. This paper focuses on the business benefits—both quantitative and qualitative—of implementing the HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers omnichannel solution for kitchen design & sales.

GIVING KITCHEN DESIGN/REMODELING CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT

Even though today’s kitchen remodel customers want the same end result as traditional customers—the kitchen of their dreams—they also want simpler, more streamlined approaches to design, visualization, proposal generation, item selection, and purchasing. They want more choices and the ability to change out items frequently to refine their designs to suit their space and tastes without encountering delays, issues, or additional costs. In short, today’s kitchen remodel customers want a better design and buying experience—giving them more freedom, flexibility, and control—and kitchen retailers that seek to obtain their business, need an effective omnichannel solution like HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers to improve the customer experience and satisfy changing customer requirements.

The Freedom to Try Different Things
Perhaps the biggest differences between today’s kitchen remodel customers and those of the past is an expectation of greater freedom in item selection; a desire to visualize several designs before making a purchasing decision; and an aversion to limitations, time delays, and hassles. In other words, today’s kitchen remodel customers want the freedom to visualize, try out, and choose from different design approaches, items, and furnishings—as well as compare costs across designs via automated generation of proposals—without having to make additional purchases and returns, or repeatedly visit the store. They want to try out different cabinets, appliances, countertops, flooring, lighting, wall paper/paint, hardware, windows, doors and furniture without having to buy and transport the items back and forth between home and store, or even visit the store at all.

I Want to See How My Kitchen Will Look Before Buying
A 2D sketch or layout of a kitchen remodel design no longer establishes a sufficient basis on which customers want to make purchasing decisions. Of course, customers still want to know what their kitchen remodel will cost, but they also want to see how it will look, with as much realism as possible, and have opportunities to switch out items—and gauge cost/style differences through automatically generating proposals—without incurring additional costs. Providing customers with easy-to-use, online 3D design tools that enable them to select items, lay out their kitchens, and visualize the final result will allow them to try out as many options as they desire and facilitate buying decisions. It will also help them identify and avoid measurement/dimensioning errors. Once customers approve their final design rendering and proposal, they can automatically see an item list of all the items required for their specific kitchen design via the HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers connection to the retailer’s ecommerce system.

None of the Hassles, Pitfalls of Traditional Kitchen Remodeling

Today’s kitchen remodel customers want greater control in designing, visualizing, and outfitting their kitchen remodels to ensure that they satsify their own personal tastes. But they also want a better understanding of what they are buying and how it will look so they can avoid the hassles and pitfalls of traditional approaches to kitchen remodeling. Change orders, delays related to repeated iterations with an in-store designer, the unavailability of a key design item on back order, multiple returns, and unnecessary deliveries are some of the pitfalls of the traditional process. In addition to alleviating these issues, HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers will minimize the likelihood that a customer exclaims, “I didn’t think it would look like that.” Because HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers delivers the ability for customers to see a high-quality 3D photo-realistic rendering of their final kitchen design, the likelihood of customer surprises decreases while customer satisfaction increases.

GROW YOUR BUSINESS AND INCREASE PROFITS WITH HOMEBYME FOR KITCHEN RETAILERS

The HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers solution allows kitchen retailers to deliver a 3D omnichannel experience that will help you grow your business, increase profit margins, and improve overall customer satisfaction. By adding an entirely new online sales and marketing channel, 3D design/visualization tools, and automatic proposal generation capabilities to your operations, you will realize the increased sales, shorter sales cycle, reduced cost of sales, increased customer satisfaction, targeted marketing/branding, and valuable business analytics that can help you realize your business growth and productivity objectives.

Increase Sales
Just as kitchen retailers have leveraged ecommerce capabilities to grow sales outside of those made in physical stores, HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers can help you capture additional sales supported by the emerging online-only and web-to-store kitchen remodel approach. Because today’s kitchen remodeling customers have more information on available styles and options, and are more comfortable operating in a digital environment, more and more of them will pursue the omnichannel approach for their kitchen remodel, including both millenials and DIYers. Plus, the availability of the HomeByMe 3D kitchen remodeling planner will drive more traffic to your website, resulting in additional ecommerce sales.

Compress the Sales Cycle
Whether customers make online purchases directly from their HomeByMe kitchen remodel design, bring the design in-store, work with an in-store sales professional to develop their remodel design, or create their remodel design using an in-store kiosk, the overall sales cycle is compressed. The ability of customers and sales professionals to simply and easily make changes to a kitchen remodel design online will minimize the need for and lessen the length of in-store consultations, reducing the number of specialized sales people required. The high-quality renderings produced by HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers also improve visualization and facilitate decision-making and purchasing selections, also contributing to a shorter overall sales cycle.

Reduce the Cost of Sales
In addition to increasing sales and shortening the sales cycle, HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers will help kitchen retailers reduce their cost of sales. By adding HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers, customers can be qualified more quickly, reduce sales overheads, and minimize unnecessary deliveries and returns, all of which decreases your cost of sales. Kitchen retailers will realize additional cost savings with HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers because the application automates the updating of your online catalog. You can make both catalog product change management—new configurations, new pricing, or multiple price lists—and catalog accessory change management—new accessories or a change in suppliers—easier with HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers.

Increase Customer Satisfaction
All kitchen remodels end in one of three ways: the customer is happy with the kitchen and process; the customer is happy with the kitchen, but did not enjoy the process; or the customer is dissatisfied on both counts. Even if the customer is very satisfied with the outcome of a kitchen remodel, if the process was difficult, it will mar the customer’s overall feelings about it and could potentially have a negative impact on brand loyalty and future purchases. Because HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers gives the customer more flexibility and control of the process, they become more invested in and play a bigger role in achieving successful outcomes. This is why HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers will help you increase customer satisfaction in the kitchen remodeling process and related purchases.

Extend Marketing Reach
The combination of HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers and ecommerce capabilities will extend a positive branded experience to customers beyond traditional geography-based markets for kitchen retail goods. The customer gets to choose the look and feel of the kitchen remodel planning experience through need mapping and user preferences on the retailer website, and retailers can tout their innovative use of online 3D design, visualization, proposal generation, and purchasing technologies in marketing vehicles that drive prospects to your online planner. Kitchen retail marketers will also gain valuable insights into customer personas by learning who uses the tool, what they are buying, where they are located, and what is their demographic makeup.

Leverage Business Analytics
In addition to helping kitchen retailers learn more about the characteristics of their customers, HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers will provide valuable business analytics that can help you tailor your business to support growth. You’ll learn about customer average frequency of use, average costs for kitchen designs, the most common furniture selected and the average shopping cart value of related purchases. You’ll even be able to access conversion rates that calculate how many customers who visit the HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers landing page make purchases, how many customers who use the HomeByMe 3D planner visit the store or place an order, and
how use of the HomeByMe application affects revenue.

IMPROVE YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE AND GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH HOMEBYME FOR KITCHEN RETAILERS

Kitchen retailers can improve the customer kitchen remodeling experience and grow your business by implementing HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers from Dassault Systèmes, The 3DEXPERIENCE Company and developer of the 3D technologies behind the development of many of today’s innovative products. HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers provides you with an affordable, effective omnichannel solution that combines 3D design, visualization, proposal generation, and ecommerce capabilities in an easy-to-use, portable browser-based application.
With support for visualization of kitchen designs in a 3D virtual reality environment on computer desktops and tablets—and augmented reality on smartphones—HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers lets your customers build the kitchen of their dreams from the comfort of their homes, in-store with a sales professional, or in-store at a HomeByMe kiosk. With HomeByMe for Kitchen Retailers, you can implement a powerful omnichannel that carries a host of business benefits and increases customer satisfaction with your goods and services.