Furniture Connect, an AI platform built for furniture and home brands, says it is helping retailers launch more than 100 products a week, cutting a process that previously took months, as more than 85 businesses across the UK, US and Ireland use its AI to accelerate product launches and improve ecommerce performance.
"Furniture Connect helps furniture businesses turn product information into sales-ready imagery, content and catalogue data, streamlining the process of getting products online and across multiple sales channels," the team behind the platform explains.
"The platform is built specifically around the requirements of furniture and home retail, where large product ranges, multiple configurations, inconsistent supplier data and an increasing number of sales channels can make traditional photography and manual content workflows slow and costly."
Pavir Patel, co-founder and CEO of Furniture Connect, continues: "Furniture businesses aren't asking what AI can do in the abstract anymore. They're asking where it can make a measurable difference to the way they operate, sell and bring products to market.
"Furniture is one of the most complex categories in commerce, and the bottlenecks aren't just creative. A business can have a product ready to sell but still be waiting for the photography, content or product information needed to launch it. We're using AI to remove those bottlenecks and help businesses get more value from the products they already have."
Furniture connect says the sector is becoming closer to fashion, with shorter product lifecycles and retailers needing to expand their product range and sell through an increasing number of sales channels. For businesses selling through multiple retailers and marketplaces, product information and imagery often has to be recreated in different formats, slowing down launches or limiting the number of products they can bring to market.
Furniture Connect says its customer results currently include an average 30% increase in sales conversions, and more than 50% faster time to market. Customers include Barker and Stonehouse, Furniturebox, Gabriella White, FW Style, GJ Styles, Bentincks and Hooker Furnishings.
For Barker and Stonehouse, Furniture Connect has significantly accelerated the process of bringing new products to market. The retailer has also used Furniture Connect imagery on its main homepage for seasonal promotions, demonstrating how the technology can meet the quality standards required for premium retail.
Daniel Williams, commercial manager at Barker and Stonehouse, says: “Furniture Connect has completely changed the speed at which we can bring products to market. In a single week we can now bring over 100 products online, with thousands of images showing every colour and angle, where that process previously took months. It means we can respond much faster to seasonal demand and get new products in front of customers sooner.”
Furniture Connect’s commercial impact is demonstrated by FW Style, which says it saw a 30% increase in conversions after switching to Furniture Connect’s AI imagery, while Furniturebox has seen conversions more than double using the platform to generate product and lifestyle imagery on Amazon.
“The impact of Furniture Connect has been clear in our ecommerce performance. Since switching to this platform, we’ve seen a 30% increase in conversions, demonstrating that high-quality product imagery can have a direct impact on how customers engage with our products online,” says Andrew Parker, Director, FW Style.
Dan Beckles, co-founder and MD at Furniture Box, adds: “Using Furniture Connect’s platform to create higher-quality product and lifestyle imagery has significantly impacted how our range performs online. On Amazon, some of our products have seen both conversion rates and units sold more than double. This shows using stronger, more engaging imagery can directly improve ecommerce performance."
At GJ Styles, Furniture Connect is helping streamline the journey from product development through to ecommerce, bringing multiple parts of the process together in one platform.
“Furniture Connect has helped us streamline the entire process of getting products to market. It brings multiple tools together in one platform, allowing us to cut the time involved in creating, preparing and uploading imagery by around 90%. At the same time, we’re creating a more consistent look across our website and giving customers a better understanding of our products before they buy," comments Kirsten Willingham, brand manager, GJ Styles.
“We’re also using Furniture Connect beyond ecommerce, creating line drawings from our product imagery to share with manufacturers. This gives us much more flexibility in how we develop and bring new products to life,” she continues.
For Gabriella White, the benefit has been operational as well as creative. The company reduced its imagery workflow time by 40% and produced its latest Summer Lookbook without a single photoshoot, saving over $50,000 compared to traditional photoshoots.
Furniture Connect concludes: "These results point to a shift in how furniture businesses are approaching AI. Rather than experimenting with AI as a standalone technology, retailers and manufacturers are increasingly applying it to specific commercial problems where improvements can be measured in launch times, workflow efficiency and ecommerce performance.
"With more than 85 furniture and home businesses now using Furniture Connect, and customers reporting measurable improvements in speed, efficiency and conversion, the company believes the results signal a broader change in the industry's approach to AI – moving beyond experimentation towards technology that is embedded in everyday commercial workflows and judged by measurable business outcomes."
