Furniture Fair and Nfinite: transitioning from traditional photography to CGI
See how Furniture Fair partnered with Nfinite to generate complete Product Description Pages (PDPs) and drive consistent imagery across channels
Challenge
The team at Furniture Fair, a family-owned furniture retailer that prioritizes fair prices, exceptional service, and quality products, needed a faster, more practical solution to generate complete Product Description Pages (PDPs) and drive consistent imagery across channels. Previously the team relied on traditional photography which was slow and often left them with limited imagery for their PDPs. In addition, vendor-provided imagery was incomplete and did not enable Furniture Fair to differentiate their offerings from their competitors that often sold similar products.
After experimenting with photography solutions that fell short of providing customizable, timely images to keep up with the speed of product rotation and sale schedules, it became clear Furniture Fair needed to shift from a traditional photography experience to finding a next-generation technology solution to help. Finding a solution that solved some major pain points was crucial for the transition to be successful. The solution needed to:
- provide greater context through visuals online and in printed materials;
- enable flexibility for the team to customize and build each visual scene quickly using only Furniture Fair products;
- differentiate Furniture Fair from competitors working with the same vendors.
“The way that our floors change constantly, it’s hard to keep up and actually showcase the product if you’re not with something that’s kind of instantaneous.”
Solution
The team learned of Nfinite’s virtual photography platform, equipping Furniture Fair with the freedom of customization and speed they needed to improve their workflow and continuously provide high-quality imagery for their customers as products are brought to market. The use of Nfinite to create product imagery has cut their visual production time in half, enabling the team to focus attention on other priorities while accurate 3D models of each SKU are generated. These models can be added to a variety of different lifestyle scenes, creating unlimited possibilities for mixing and matching available products in the catalog.
And the web is just one Furniture Fair channel improved by the power of context-rich CGI imagery. The same models and images are utilized in printed materials, an essential channel for the furniture industry. Once the buyers have selected products, the team can take that information and prepare the materials for web and print in advance to make the most of the products while they are available to shoppers.
“Nfinite models are more versatile beyond the web. We use these images for more than just our online displays. We have a lot more options with the imagery that we’re going to have now.”
Results
Improved PDPs
Furniture Fair's merchandising team has partnered with Nfinite to establish an automated workflow, enhancing their product visuals and delivering comprehensive PDPs for their web store. The PDPs will now showcase imagery of the product from every angle, plus a close-up in the 360° view. Each lifestyle image enhances the experience for customers to engage with the product and envision it in their own space.
Fast image creation for time-sensitive products
Black Friday and Labor Day are just two examples of critical annual promotions for Furniture Fair. The creation of 3D models and lifestyle imagery in advance for products available during these sales allows Furniture Fair to take full advantage of generating a plan for success. While working against the short window for sales and limited stock distributed across 12 brick-and-mortar stores, Nfinite’s platform’s speed and versatility result in more successful promotional opportunities.
Automated workflows
The Furniture Fair team can now conquer more at once by partnering with Nfinite to generate and automate the development of product imagery. With both web and print image materials in the works, the team achieves more than what was possible using traditional photography. Collins stated, “It’s nice to know that the team is still rendering stuff for me, so the wheels are still going even if my attention has to be elsewhere.”
Improved PDPs
Furniture Fair's merchandising team has partnered with Nfinite to establish an automated workflow, enhancing their product visuals and delivering comprehensive PDPs for their web store. The PDPs will now showcase imagery of the product from every angle, plus a close-up in the 360° view. Each lifestyle image enhances the experience for customers to engage with the product and envision it in their own space.
Fast image creation for time-sensitive products
Black Friday and Labor Day are just two examples of critical annual promotions for Furniture Fair. The creation of 3D models and lifestyle imagery in advance for products available during these sales allows Furniture Fair to take full advantage of generating a plan for success. While working against the short window for sales and limited stock distributed across 12 brick-and-mortar stores, Nfinite’s platform’s speed and versatility result in more successful promotional opportunities.
Automated workflows
The Furniture Fair team can now conquer more at once by partnering with Nfinite to generate and automate the development of product imagery. With both web and print image materials in the works, the team achieves more than what was possible using traditional photography. Collins stated, “It’s nice to know that the team is still rendering stuff for me, so the wheels are still going even if my attention has to be elsewhere.”
“With most of the Nfinite generated images I’ve shared so far, the feedback has been ‘That’s 3D?’. They’re pretty shocked.”