So our biggest pet peeve about selling furniture is the photography, and by that we mean never having great pictures of the products to share with our clients!
Lets discuss the above photo. It’s a GREAT photo but its in a PAPER catalog, that’s then been loaded online and and we have had to click 12 times to get there. What part of it’s 2015 don’t these furniture companies get?! Newsflash: we live in a day and age where we, like everyone else, has no time and just wants to get the answer. If we’re looking for a gold chandelier we type gold chandelier into a search box on their website, and THAT photo should come up alongside the one they provide which is as follows
But let me tell you how we got to the above photo — no there’s not a chandelier search under their lighting tab, it’s by material (again –hellooo — try by category).
So four clicks later we finally find the above image, but the pretty one that I originally showed you is no where to be found. Now don’t get us wrong; the company that produced this particular example, Cyan, is a staple in our line up that we love, not only because of the variety, but the range of style and price they consistently provide. There are thousands of companies across multiple industries that are trying to conduct regular business, as well as figure out how to deal with this new furniture online reality so we applaud Cyan for evening having a website and options online as other furniture companies don’t. Our point is that the entire industry needs to think about how people – their customers i.e. dealers and our customers FIND information.
In a day and age where EVERYONE goes online before they go to a store in search of something, we constantly wonder when they will stop wasting time and money on producing glossy coffee table-esque catalogs that cost THEM a fortune to ship or ship to market and then hand out, and instead focus their photography efforts around having not only good, but multiple, images of their product line up accessible to all their dealers, and their customers, online. It seems like the most basic concept but takes an army of change to take them out of the norm, and with 350+ vendors we can absolutely confirm everyone is trying something different.
Calling on Cyan for yet another example as this just ended up in our inbox… check this out
Yes it’s Wacky Wednesday and this totally qualifies for the theme, but what do you think? Was this a deliberate and scheduled video shoot or more of an outtake, “we’ve been on set for 800 hours and just want to go home” blooper type thing?
Sure video is a useful format and their behind the scenes tour of the set is cool (sidenote: we can’t even imagine the army needed to set up a product shoot sheerly because of the number of small pieces that would need to be carried to set and propped this way or that!), but did they actually spend money planning to shoot this in hopes that this would entice their retailers to swing by their showroom next market and then lug around a 50lb catalog? Or to help them sell these products easily and faster? Or to give us a giggle about how awkward their models look while shooting?
While we’ll never know their intention, we are definitely interested in knowing what you think of this type of product marketing. Helpful? Not? What frustrates you about finding information about furniture and decor online? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
PS did you see something you like? Items are available with $1 shipping duties included in Canada/USA. Use the live chat to get Stylist help.
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