Furniture 3D and AR case studies: Sweef, MELIMELI, Contura

Sweef sells modular sofas, MELIMELI sells design sofas online, and Contura makes wood-burning stoves sold through dealers. Each came to us with a different problem. The case studies are linked below.

Sweef and the modular sofa configurator

Shoppers buy a modular sofa for the choice of layout, and that choice is what makes it hard to picture from a web page. On a normal product page a shopper has to keep several module combinations in mind and guess how each would look in their room.

Sweef already had 3D material in-house but no way to show it to customers. We turned it into a modular configurator with web AR, so a shopper can build a layout and then place it in their own room at real size.

The Sweef case study describes the result as a clearer link between a complex product and the customer's understanding of it, with the module choice becoming something customers could work through.

MELIMELI's sofas, fabrics and in-home view

MELIMELI's customers care about design and expect a high standard, and the vast majority of MELIMELI's sales happen online. A sofa is often the main piece in a room, and people have usually chosen one in a showroom, where they can sit on it and feel the fabrics.

Content for large furniture is also expensive to produce, and every fabric and configuration adds to the cost.

What we built lets customers explore the sofas, browse fabrics and see the furniture in their own home. The MELIMELI case study describes the result as a richer online shopping experience that gave customers new ways to explore the range, and notes that the same functionality improved MELIMELI's own content production.

MELIMELI's advice on that page is to do it if showing the product close to real life online is essential to the business.

Contura's Build Your Stove configurator

Contura makes wood-burning stoves in a range with many models and options. Customers compare models and specifications and think about how the stove will look in a particular room, and most use the website first and then visit a retailer.

We built the 3D assets from Contura's CAD files, which is the best starting point for a manufactured product with exact dimensions, and used them for the Build Your Stove configurator and a web AR experience. Customers could work through the configuration online and were no longer limited to static product content.

The Contura case study reports a more effective buying process across online and in-store sales. It also notes that in-store visits improved, because customers came to the retailer having already narrowed down their choice. The quote on that page describes the solution as supporting the buying process from the website through to the store visit.

What the three have in common

In all three the product was large, expensive and sold in many versions.

None of the three published a conversion figure. The nearest public number is Shopify's Rebecca Minkoff case, where shoppers were 27 percent more likely to order after viewing a 3D model. Rebecca Minkoff sells bags and clothing, so the figure doesn't carry over to furniture.

Starting points

The three projects had different starting points. Sweef had existing 3D material, Contura had CAD files, and MELIMELI had a content production problem and a showroom experience to bring online. The starting point affects the cost and the order of the work.

Sources

• CharpstAR case studies: Sweef, MELIMELI, Contura.
• Shopify, 3D e-commerce.