We’ve updated our Virtual Designer Overview eBook! It now includes information on our Customizable Product Combinations.
In our newest virtual designer, “Choose a Look” feature, your company now has the ability to have product combinations applied to an image with one simple click. You can customize specific palettes of product combinations for your consumers. Whether it’s a mixture of hardwood, tile, paint, countertops, etc…you can make up your own custom combinations.
Download our updated eBook to learn more!
Don’t forget to check out some of our other great eBooks:
The Floor Project Case Study
Do you want to know more about The Floor Project and how they’ve incorporated a virtual designer into their business platform? Download our new eBook!
Download The Floor Project Case Study >>
Virtual Designer User Registration Options
We are excited to announce four user registration options for the Varatys Virtual Designer!
Having the right registration option selected is essential. If you select No Membership; your users won’t be able to save vs. if you have the Login option then they can save on multiple devices. Depending on which user registration option you have affects your users directly.
Download User Registration Options >>
How to Develop Your Own Design Center in Five Steps
With a design center on your website you can:
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Boost Consumer Engagement
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Increase Product Awareness
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Offer Educational Resources to Your Consumers
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Embed and Market a Virtual Designer
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Repurpose Great Blog Content
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Develop a Deeper Relationship with Your Consumers
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And So Much More!
Download How to Develop Your Own Design Center >>
Why Do Consumers Want to Engage with Brands
In our eBook you will learn:
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Why Do Consumers Want to Engage with Brands
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Where do customers seek valuable content
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What kind of content should I create
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Five last thoughts on content marketing
Download Why Do Consumers Want to Engage with Brands >>
Happy Friday! It is supposed to be an amazing weekend in New England and we hope the same for your area. Check out our list of ten things you might not know about the Varatys Virtual Designer and how it can help engage your shoppers, increase web traffic, and create more confident product purchases.
1) Shoppers can upload their own photos and apply your products immediately.
"Use Your Own Photo" is the most coveted feature we offer. Your shoppers can upload a photo of their house, room, business, etc...and instantly apply your products.
2) It is affordable to subscribe to the Varatys Virtual Designer:
We have designed the Varatys Virtual Designer to give you a custom look and feel without having a super expensive price tag. Our monthly subscription makes embedding this powerful tool easy, low-risk, and affordable. You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to look like one!
3) The Varatys Virtual Designer is a great selling tool:
Customers love it and so will your Sales staff. The Varatys Virtual Designer is HTML compatible. So whether your team is helping a customer at a kiosk, from a computer, or on their tablet they can deliver a custom sample of what your product will look like when applied.
4) You can customize the Varatys Virtual Designer:
You can customize your virtual designer with personalized skins, custom room scenes, featured products, and so much more!
Personalized Skins: Choose a coordinating skin option to match the design of your company website.
Custom Room Scenes: Does your company have high-end room scenes? Don’t let them go to waste! We can integrate them into your Virtual Designer.
Featured Products: We will feature products of your choosing on the landing page. This will promote products you want your customers to see first.
Custom Created Product Combos: You can now customize unique sets of product combinations for your virtual designer users!
Click here to see a full features and benefits listing.
5) The Varatys Virtual Designer is brand adaptable:
The Varatys Virtual Designer is fully customizable to adapt to your company’s branding and location: you can personalize it with your logo, company colors, beauty shot/video, products, product descriptions, room scenes, social media sharing, and room descriptions. We give you every opportunity to let your company’s personality shine.
6) You can sell product placement within the Varatys Virtual Designer:
The beauty shot and product categories are customizable. Your company can use the space for advertisers and feature product placement.
Sell Sponsorship of Application
Non-Endemic Sponsors: You can use the Varatys Virtual Designer as the "ultimate banner ad" to attract sponsors outside of your industry. This can be done through product placement in photos and/or links in product descriptions.
App is Full of Generic Products: You can team up with partnering companies to use their product assets to accent your own instead of using our generic set.
7) The Varatys Virtual Designer creates smarter more confident shoppers:
While using a virtual designer, shoppers feel in control of their products, making decisions based on personal preferences and style. This process also assists in reducing purchase anxiety and creates confident shoppers.
8) eCommerce is only “one click away” at all times in the Varatys Virtual Designer:
With our new product detail "one click away" feature, shoppers are now always one click away from your product details. This includes an ecommerce (purchase) link to your website to promote online sales.
9) The Varatys Virtual Designer has a product search feature:
Your customers can now search on the Product Catalog and Visualizer pages. Having search in the Varatys Virtual Designer makes it more user-friendly and consumer driven. Instead of browsing through each product you and your customers can now search by a specific property.
Our search feature browses the entire category and not just one collection. This is an added bonus because it exposes your customers to more options that they might not have looked for.
10) The Varatys Virtual Designer drives consumer engagement:
Consumer engagement is a challenging obstacle for many companies. Embedding a virtual designer on your website gives your company an opportunity to capture the consumer's attention. Potential customers can go online and build a relationship with your company and products. It services your consumers 24/7, assisting them in their design process and offering a wide range of data on your company's product catalog.
On May 28th, 2013 The Floor Project had their grand opening in Wichita Kansas and on May 29th, 2013 they opened their Topeka Kansas store.
We were thrilled to be in attendance to witness such a great event and the start of all the wonderful things to come for The Floor Project!
Do you want to know more about The Floor Project and how they’ve incorporated a virtual designer into their business platform?
Download our new eBook!
In the latest issue of Floor Covering Weekly they announced their RēCo Report; which is an analysis of the flooring industry and its leaders. The RēCo Report is determined by using online survey methodology processed by the Wayman Group.
Shaw Floors, who license our Rendering Engine Technology, swept the top spots in laminate and carpet flooring. Armstrong was at the top of the leader board for vinyl and Daltile edged out the competition in ceramic tile. The nine key attributes FCW looks for are: quality, service, merchandising support, price, product availability, consumer preference, advertising/co-op, complaints/claims, and training.
See the full RēCo Report on Floor Covering Weekly’s website.
Embedding your own branded virtual designer is more important than you might think. You might see it as a great way to showcase your product catalog but it is so much more than that to your consumers.
Choosing a paint color, hardwood floor, roof, etc…is such a personal experience. Going on your website or into your store and seeing your product samples can make the decision hard. With so much to look at might seem overwhelming. Having a virtual designer gives their personal quest for the right product direction and emphasizes their individuality. They can choose a room/house scene that is similar to their own or upload an actual photo and start designing their dream room/home. You’ve instantly personalized the shopping experience.
There are thousands of style blogs out there that are influencing consumers at rapid rates. They highlight products, give fashion/interior style advice, problem solve dilemmas, and provide endless inspiration. Bloggers are also starting to notice virtual designers as being an extremely helpful tool to assist with product comparisons.
“Some people have an ease and confidence picking out colors, but some of us become wracked with indecision. For the later group, Benjamin Moore's online Personal Color Viewer is a great way to get started.” (Apartment Therapy) That’s it! A virtual designer is designed not to take away from the whole shopping experience but instead to assist, help personalize, and narrow down the selection of products. It can be applied to the beginning of the shopping process or the end. If a virtual designer is used at the beginning of the shopping experience; it can help your consumers figure out a handful of products that they like. When they come into your store they are better educated in your product selection and might just want to see each product in person before making a final decision. It helps your sales staff close sales faster.
At The Floor Project; consumers can go into a store, meet with a flooring specialist, look at samples and scan product QR codes into their individual floor projects, and then virtually design their room. They are encouraged to bring a photo of their rooms to the store to have it professionally prepared by The Floor Project associates. Having their store selected products digitally showcased in a virtual designer gives their consumers confidence in their product choices. It helps eliminate the “what ifs” of purchasing a new floor.
Check out these fabulous five blogs that discuss their experience with a virtual designer (click on the logo to go to the blog):
Take a tour of our virtual designer; download our eBook today and/or schedule a personal demo with our sales team!
With the store launch of The Floor Project; we’ve been adding to our résumé of “Use Your Own Photo” (UYOP) featured Virtual Designers. Each one is a great example of how flexible the Varatys Virtual Designer is to brand and embed into your website.
In the Varatys Virtual Designer, branding goes beyond a logo; you can customize your landing page image, promote featured products, add custom eCommerce links, give store location information, add your own products, incorporate social media accounts to gain the ever important social media buzz, and yes, even add a logo!
Check out each of our “Use Your Own Photo” clients to see how they’ve branded their virtual designers.
The Floor Project
Located in Kansas, The Floor Project works directly with mills to bring their shoppers the most unique and stylish products in the country. Owned by CAP Carpets, their products can be seen in everything, from regional homes, health care settings and offices to homes of the stars and private jets.
The Floor Project customers can go into a store, meet with a flooring specialist, look at samples and scan product QR codes into their individual floor projects, and then virtually design their room.
They are encouraged to bring a photo of their rooms to the store to have it professionally prepared by The Floor Project associates. Having their products digitally showcased in a virtual designer gives their consumers confidence in their product choices. It helps eliminate the “what ifs” of purchasing a new floor.
They have custom branded their virtual designer to work flawlessly with their website. They have enabled our direct linking capabilities from their product pages to allow their customers to view a product directly in their virtual designer.
Realstone Systems
Realstone Systems has developed a line of stone veneer products that are recognized for their quality, natural beauty, and ease of installation backed by exceptional customer service. With a large range of panel and mat products complimented by corresponding accessories, Realstone provides a top-to-bottom solution for a complete installation of natural stone veneer.
Realstone Systems already had a login system available on their website. To be consistent they have adopted our shared key login system. With shared key; you only need to login once and you have access to your account information on a website and within the virtual designer. There is no need double login!
Pratt & Lambert Paints
Pratt & Lambert has stood for quality, leadership, and innovation in the paint industry since 1849.
They have offered the finest paint products and an unwavering commitment to dealers, architects, designers, contractors and consumers. Pratt & Lambert have over 1,000 colors to help bring your vision to life.
Pratt & Lambert Paints continues their aesthetic visual appeal from their website to their virtual designer. They consistently have high social media clicks and Pinterest leads the way for being one of the most shareable options.
Dutch Boy Paints
Dutch Boy is an industry leader in delivering innovative and high-quality paint products and packaging solutions, and is one of the most recognizable brands in the market.
Their paint has been used on several prestigious projects including: The Hollywood Sign, The White House, The Golden Gate Bridge, Disney World, and US Naval Battleships/Aircraft Carriers.
Dutch Boy Paints gives their virtual designer a unique look on their product page. Their product category buttons bring forth their brand personality and likability.
Choose a Look
With our new “Choose a Look” product combination palettes; your company can get even more creative than ever before in your virtual designer! You can create custom product combinations for your customers. Try it out on our website demo!
You can add as much or as little personality and customization that you want. The more interaction you have with your consumer the more they are going to identify with your brand/company. Take a look at the breakdown of each item below:
Landing Page Image:
Grab your consumer’s attention from the start! You can customize your landing page image or video to best represent the message you want to convey.
Featured Products:
You can feature a handful of your company’s products on the landing page. By having featured products, you can direct your consumers to product lines that are seasonal, lines that you are trying to push, and/or the most popular products you offer.
eCommerce Links:
You can supply buy links on the Product Detail page. When clicked, a pop-up browser will appear to your website, allowing your users to purchase samples on your website.
Store Locations:
You can add store locations to your virtual designer.
Add Your Own Products:
Companies can import their entire product catalog so that the user has a full view of all of their product offerings. They can customize it by their own categories and subcategories.
Social Media:
If you are already participating in social media outlets, you are probably hard at work trying to gain a bigger online audience. Having the Varatys Virtual Designer embedded on your website will allow your customers to create a digital buzz for you by sharing their projects and your products from our visualizer page on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Company Logo:
We make it easy to add your company logo to your virtual designer. If you have your virtual designer set up as a pop-up; adding a logo will continue your consistent branding message while your consumers are outside of your website designing a photo with your products.
Our newest virtual designer “Choose a Look” feature adds the ability to have product combinations applied to an image with one simple click. Your company can customize specific palettes of product combinations for your consumers. Whether it’s a mixture of hardwood, tile, paint, countertops, etc…you can make up your own custom combinations.
The Details:
You can select up to five different products to create a custom product collection. The product combinations are considered their own collection in your virtual designer product catalog.
Your consumers will be able to scroll through all available options and apply them to an image. Once on that image, the appropriate surfaces are filled in and your consumers can also swap out different products to create their own look. We’ve made it as flexible as possible to fit the needs of your consumers.
One of the major benefits to embedding our virtual designer subscription is that your company has the ability to take advantage of all of our updates and advancements.
We never stop working to improve the Varatys Virtual Designer. Your company’s needs are extremely important to us. When we see a shift in needs we address it and try to make the best possible product we can.
Go to our website demo and check out our new product combinations! If you already have our branded virtual designer on your website and want product combinations let us know. We’ll get you the documentation to get you started.
If you don’t have a virtual designer on your website, what are you waiting for?! The Varatys Virtual Designer is designed to increase your shopper engagement. Your shoppers can design a photo 24/7 from their computers, iPads, and tablets.
Schedule your personal demo today!
After a very windy day in Wichita, Kansas we were thrilled to see the unveiling of The Floor Project!
The Pirner family (CAP Carpet, Inc.) is the brainchild behind The Floor Project with stores in Wichita and Topeka, Kansas. They entered the flooring business in 1967 when La Vone Pirner launched a 4,000-square-foot flooring store in Wichita, Kansas.
They are a second-generation family-owned business with sales worldwide comprising of seven brands: Aircraft Interior Products (AIP), Big Bob’s Flooring Outlet, Carpet One Floor & Home®, The Floor Project, The Floor Trader, ProSource, and White Oak.
Styles have come and gone but the Pirner family’s vision for a strong, local, customer-centric company has lasted the test of time. Today their flooring products are seen in area homes, health care facilities, offices, celebrity mansions, and even private jets. To ensure the highest level of quality they not only work closely with mills but they also own their own mill. After 45 years in the flooring industry they wanted to shake things up and retransform the way their consumers shopped for flooring products; thus The Floor Project was born.
The Floor Project conducted extensive market research to see what their consumer was really looking for. They have completely revitalized how their consumers think and purchase flooring products. Consumers wanted bigger samples and they wanted to visualize how their new carpet was going to look in their homes.
Using this feedback, The Floor Project developed two new product presentations:
#1 – They updated their product samples.
The Floor Project created bigger samples that open up to even BIGGER samples that consumers can cut and bring home to place on their floors. In addition to the new presentation displays, The Floor Project took great care in lighting the store. They created “real life” lighting that allows their products to be seen under a true light and not the old florescent bulbs of long-ago.
#2 – The Floor Project also added the Varatys Virtual Designer to their repertoire of product presentation methods.
Consumers can go into a store, meet with a flooring specialist, look at samples and scan product QR codes into their individual floor projects, and then virtually design their room. They are encouraged to bring a photo of their rooms to the store to have it professionally prepared by The Floor Project associates. Having their products digitally showcased in a virtual designer gives their consumers confidence in their product choices. It helps eliminate the “what ifs” of purchasing a new floor.
The Floor Project answers this question on their website: “So, my cabinets are maple what flooring goes best? Okay, that's easy. Let’s take a look at your flooring selections against a maple virtual kitchen in The Floor Project’s room designer, online or in our showrooms. The Floor Project is all about options such as letting you visualize your flooring samples you have selected in various room settings, including your own. Our state-of-the-art virtual room design tool will show you your flooring selections in a wide variety of real room settings. You can even change the wall colors, the direction the flooring will lay, and then share your new design with friends and family to get their opinion.”
Their room designer helps take some of the guess work out of what a floor will look like in your room. The Floor Project’s mission is to use technology to make sure the flooring you choose is going to enhance your décor and be the flooring you dreamed of.
The Floor Project’s Room Designer is the crème de la crème of our Varatys offerings.
They have our coveted “Use Your Own Photo” feature and shared key access! Check out their virtual designer first hand on their website.
We’re in Wichita, Kansas today attending the grand opening of The Floor Project. They are one of our newest virtual designer clients and we are excited to see how they’ve incorporated their branded virtual designer into their marketing efforts. We’ll be posting more about that tomorrow but in the meantime did you know that the Varatys Virtual Designer is fully customizable and can be easily branded to your company?
We understand how important your brand is and we give you every opportunity within our virtual designer to incorporate your identity. Branding goes beyond a logo; you can customize your landing page image, promote featured products, add custom eCommerce links, give store location information, add your own products, incorporate social media accounts to gain the ever important social media buzz, and yes, even add a logo!
You can add as much or as little personality and customization that you want. The more interaction you have with your consumer the more they are going to identify with your brand/company. Take a look at the breakdown of each item below:
Landing Page Image:
Grab your consumer’s attention from the start! You can customize your landing page image or video to best represent the message you want to convey.
Featured Products:
You can feature a handful of your company’s products on the landing page. By having featured products, you can direct your consumers to product lines that are seasonal, lines that you are trying to push, and/or the most popular products you offer.
eCommerce Links:
You can supply buy links on the Product Detail page. When clicked, a pop-up browser will appear to your website, allowing your users to purchase samples on your website.
Store Locations:
You can add store locations to your virtual designer.
Add Your Own Products:
Companies can import their entire product catalog so that the user has a full view of all of their product offerings. They can customize it by their own categories and subcategories.
Social Media:
If you are already participating in social media outlets, you are probably hard at work trying to gain a bigger online audience. Having the Varatys Virtual Designer embedded on your website will allow your customers to create a digital buzz for you by sharing their projects and your products from our visualizer page on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Company Logo:
We make it easy to add your company logo to your virtual designer. If you have your virtual designer set up as a pop-up; adding a logo will continue your consistent branding message while your consumers are outside of your website designing a photo with your products.
Check out our clients to see how you can incorporate your own brand.
Three online design newsletters that have caught our attention lately are #Flooring & #Kitchen #Design Daily, The Roof Coating Daily, and Flooring & Home Design.
Put together by the amazing Hayley Taylor of Gillenwater Flooring; it focuses on all things flooring, kitchen, and interior design.
Today’s Topics:
Flooring Trends: Decorating: Home & Garden Television; How to Choose Carpeting – Bob Vila’s Blog; Floor Repair and Refinishing Tips; and Varatys is featured in the Technology section!
Assembled by Randy Patton of Conklin’s Roofing Systems; it features different roofing techniques and trends in the industry.
Today’s Topics:
Roofing Products and Insulation Materials; Composite Slate Roofing Installation the Right Way; and Sometimes It’s About Curb Appeal.
Put together by Flooring America DMV; they have a passion for all things flooring and home design. They have showrooms in Fairfax, Woodbridge and White Plains that are spacious and state of the art. Check out their website here!
Today’s Topics:
Main Street Matters – Benjamin Moore & Co.; Hardwood Floors; Green Blog: Proposed Lacey ANSI Standard; and loads of informative videos!
Check out one or all of these online newsletters to keep up to date on all the latest trends and technologies in the home industry. Let us know some of your favorite reads!