Product configurator interview for Internet Retailer
I was recently interviewed for a series of articles published both online and in print for Internet Retailer. I always find it interesting to see which quotes are chosen by the writer and how comments are represented when an article is finally published. The two articles in which my comments were featured were:
Rich media wows shoppers, boosts sales and builds brands—if e-retailers build it right.
Consumer insights refine early version of Levolor.com product configurator
This article is specific to our site in which more of my comments about launching a product configurator were used from the original interview below.
Original Interview
The article was published as a result of the effort of Adobe Scene7's PR firm which is why you'll see a few of the questions below specific to Adobe's Scene7 product which we use for the interactive imagery in our product configurator.
In the spirit of full disclosure, and because I think the information in the answers below provides good background for companies considering product configurators, here is the full Q&A from the interview with additional links:
Q: When was the site launched? How long has the product configurator been on the site?
The product configurator was launched in June 2007.
Q: Please describe the product configuration capacity on your site and the underlying technology that powers it.
The product configurator is designed specifically for window treatments and supports 100s of billions of product combinations that are unique to the window covering industry. Technology used: PHP for the application layer, MySQL for the database layer, and Ajax for much of the real-time calls to the server throughout the configuration process. Scene7’s dynamic imaging component is used to visualize window treatments as they are built throughout the configuration process.
Q: Why is rich media and this tool in particular important to selling at Levolor.com? What does this interactive capacity add to the proposition that text and static images can’t accomplish?
Since we deal with a home décor product, the ability to visualize the custom-order product prior to ordering is important to our customers. The interactive capability allows for the many billions of combinations of our product to be visualized on-the-fly without having to individually create the accompanying static images. Scene7’s dynamic imaging technology enables us to dynamically call the visual components of a configured product.
Q: In choosing across the standard and custom options – and the different product categories (blinds, drapes, etc.) – how many combinations are possible? If that number isn’t available, how many options are there to choose from?
There are over 100 billion combinations for ordering our custom blinds and shades. This doesn’t mean there are 100 billion questions to answer in a single configuration, but rather the combination of product options, colors, and sizes equate to over 100 billion different ways our products can be ordered. For a consumer, custom blinds and shades are an investment in their home and the ability to see a visual representation of the product before it is ordered adds peace of mind.
Q: What were the challenges associated with getting this many images up online? How did you resolve the challenges?
The need for dynamic imaging was obvious. There was no way it was financially feasible to maintain billions of image combinations. By leveraging Scene7’s dynamic imaging technology, we were able to resolve this product data challenge.
Q: What are the challenges associated with making sure this many images are served in a timely way in response to site visitor requests? Could you have handled this on your own servers, do you use a content delivery network, or is this something Scene7 provides?
Scene7 provides the necessary capacity and delivery requirements to meet the needs of our end-users. Scene7’s technology was more of a foregone conclusion than it was for us to try and solve the “challenges associated with making sure this many images are served in a timely way in response to site visitor requests.”
Q: As you prepared to implement the product configurator, was there anything you learned in the process that caused you to adjust your initial plans in any way? How did you resolve that?
Assembling a team of product experts, web development experts, interactive experts, and usability experts proved to be the most challenging. Each functional expert approaches a product configurator from their own point of view and it made identifying the ideal user interface for our end-users a very time-intensive initiative. Having the ability to deliver dynamic imaging is only a fraction of the equation to a successful configurator. For Levolor, the product configurator is an ongoing product which is updated and improved on a daily basis based on changing consumer insights, trends, and technological enhancements.
Q: What advice would you have for other online retailers considering adding this much rich media to their site, from an operational perspective? Is there any different way you would approach this, based on what you learned from you initial experience?
A product configurator is an ongoing commitment and should be treated as a part of your organization’s product offering. It’s easy to launch a functionally-sound configurator online but very difficult to achieve consistently positive customer satisfaction without continuous improvement; particularly if your configurable products change on a yearly basis. All too often we see organizations invest in a product configurator but neglect to plan post-launch improvements. The end result is a product configurator plagued by costly & massive one-time updates because the budgets align with advertising & promotion rather than research & development. A&P budgets fluctuate considerably and having the budget significantly reduced one year (due to economic conditions or otherwise) can single-handedly cripple your product configurator’s effectiveness on your website. With interactive technology changing as quickly as it does, it’s important to stay on top of interactive and usability trends so you can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to customers interacting with your product configurator.
Q: What does it cost you to have the product configurator up on your site? Has the return been worth it?
No comment.
Custom Product Configurator API
This month we launched an industry first: we have built a custom product configurator API. We have teamed with American Blinds, the largest online retailer of window treatments, to put the API in production with the launch of our previously-mentioned custom draperies program.
The B2B benefit
The API allows American Blinds to effectively "shake hands" with our product configurator enabling online ordering of custom draperies from Levolor without having to do any product programming. This enables us as the manufacturer to focus on effectively managing the hundreds of billions of configuration possibilities with our custom product lines while American Blinds focuses on the marketing of the products to their consumers -- essentially the best of both worlds.
Here are screen shots of the experience:
The American Blinds Curtains & Draperies landing page:
The Levolor Draperies landing page on AmericanBlinds.com:
Now entering the Levolor.com product configurator:
The completed configuration passed back to the American Blinds shopping cart via the API:
The American Blinds checkout process with a Levolor configured product sent via the API:
The B2C benefit
The benefit to consumers is a seamless experience as they are passed unknowingly from server-to-server with no interruption in navigation. To them, it is like picking up another product sample book in the store. At the time of purchase, regardless of products they have in their cart, they still go through the same checkout line for a completely seamless purchasing experience.
Another Levolor.com Launch – Custom Draperies
After many months of site development and many years of new product development, I'm very happy to announce that we've launched the new features & product on Levolor.com. Here are a few screen shots:
The updated homepage featuring new custom draperies and all of our product lines:
Preview of the inspirational pages:
Virtual Decoration: choose wall colors, trim colors, and drapery fabrics
Full product configurator: custom draperies at the convenience of your computer screen
Free samples. It doesn't get any easier than this page.
And of course, drop-down menus for easier/quicker site navigation. What a concept!
And as with any major product or site re-launch, these few screen shots don't come close to capturing the amount of "behind the scenes" work that went into the site -- you know, the stuff that only the development team truly appreciates! 
Now it's time to start digging into the analytics to see how online visitors navigate this product category. It's a much different process than custom blinds & shades, so the online insights will be interesting to learn from.
Levolor.com E-commerce Press Release
In light of Levolor.com exiting the beta stage, we've distributed a press release with high-level details of the "new" online store available on the site.
This release made the rounds beginning on 2/18/08. While I didn't personally anticipate much coverage from the release (outside of the blinds & shades industry, releases like this get a "So, what?" reaction), it's interesting to see the increased traffic from visitors from North Carolina. Presumably, because we're based in North Carolina, the local publications picked up the press release and the information resonated more with consumers who happened to come across the release in their home state.
One thing which I still don't understand is why press releases on most sites (like our release at Internet Retailer), don't hyperlink our website address, or better yet, even provide our web address. It's funny to see an industry publication not only whiddle down a press release, but also ignore the very features and functionality that make the Internet what it is.
Levolor.com out of beta
I'm happy to announce that Levolor.com has finally left the realm of being in "beta." We ran the site in its beta form for a little over 6 months and just rolled the first round of updates and fixes (since leaving beta) to the site last week. Here's an overview of what's new:
New Products Added:
As we begin to expand our web presence, we are also beginning to add our full line of products to the website (though only custom blinds & shades may be purchased online). "Blinds, Shades, & Drapery Hardware" is the tagline under the logo on the website and you can now find all of this product information under the "products" tab on the website.
New Product Page Layouts:
We've also updated our product pages to reflect the content and end-user experience found in our in-store sample books. This combines beautiful room scene photography with nice, large pictures of product options, and best of all, videos to help describe product options.
Online Store
Our online store now features all of our custom blinds and shades. During our beta period, we only offered a limited selection of products.
What was learned during the beta period
I'm normally opposed to plastering "BETA" across the heading of a website because it's become more a buzz word than anything in the online industry. Everything seems to be launched in Beta and because it's in Beta, it gets more hype from online bugs for one reason or another. That being said, I'm glad we did it because end-users were more understanding if something went wrong on the website during the beta period. I was actually surprised to see how many consumers shopping for our products mention the "Beta" moniker in their comments.
Consumers are browsing online first
What we didn't expect was a backlash from consumers who couldn't find all of our product information online. Even though we don't sell a large portion of our products on our website, it didn't seem to matter -- consumers wanted the information on the site. This is not necessarily specific to us but is really a trend in consumer shopping habits across the board. Not everyone goes online to purchase, they are going online to research so they can be educated before they purchase.
Consumers are arming themselves with information (because the store associate doesn't have the knowledge)
In our retail channels (big box stores), store associates are hard to come by and they are not always experts in the area of the store you happen to flag them down in (ever grabbed the "electrical guy" at Home Depot who happened to be passing through the patio furniture display?). Being armed with full product information and narrowing down your options between one or two final products that you'd like to take a look at in store before purchasing seems to be the trend these days.
This really comes as no surprise as my wife and I do the same thing. Recently we purchased a Dyson vacuum, researched it on the Dyson website, and went to Best Buy (retail store) to close the purchase after we compared two models in the store. Naturally, the "car audio manager" helped us and did nothing more than read the description of the product off of the box as we asked questions about the two models we were interested in. About all he was good for was helping with the honoring of the online price from bestbuy.com (which was cheaper than the in-store price).
Beta launches are a Good Thing
Despite my reservations about jumping on the Beta bandwagon, the Beta period helped us understand more of what consumers were looking for on our website and this has fueled the online effort. I would recommend releasing a site in "Beta" if it encompasses major changes for consumers -- they'll be understanding and will be a bit more candid if they run across a problem or frustration. The general public is becoming more familiar with what "Beta" means.
Next steps for Levolor.com
While I won't outline the roadmap for Levolor.com, I'll continue to post updates as we make major updates to the site. For now, we'll just focus on incremental improvements now that all of our custom blinds and shades are available online for sale.
Blog by Eric Long
I'm an experienced online marketer, information architect, digital strategist, and social media enthusiast. I'm passionate about providing outstanding cross-channel experiences for considered purchases (with a focus on mass customization).
About Eric Long
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