iPhone Furniture Shopping App

October 5, 2010  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Retail Technology on October 6, 2010

A new iPhone app, SnapShop Showroom, aims to help consumers "try before they buy" during the furniture purchase process.

The app, available now for free download at iTunes, allows consumers to browse catalogs with their smart phone, and take pictures of their personal space with the product they are considering embedded in the photo.

"In creating the SnapShop Showroom app, we set out to overcome one of the major barriers in the furniture purchasing process: envisioning how a piece of furniture will look in your space once you get it home," says Eduardo Hueso, founder and CEO of SnapShop Inc., a San Francisco-based specialist in mobile marketing and commerce solutions for the furniture industry. "The ability to 'see' a chair or sofa in your living room before you buy, for example, goes a long way toward mitigating the fear of making a costly decorating mistake."

According to the company, 25,000 consumers downloaded the beta version of the application in the first month. Hueso and partner Brian Chaikelson are coming to the Oct. 16-21 High Point Furniture Market to gather additional feedback on the application from major retailers and other industry leaders.

"Business has been challenging for furniture retailers across the country this summer, but we know from the consumer response to the app that the desire to purchase new furniture hasn't really waned," Chaikelson said. "The fact is that most of us just don't have a tremendous amount of experience when it comes to purchasing furniture since we do it so infrequently. And, given economic conditions, now more than ever, everyone wants to be sure they are spending their dollars wisely. Our view is that by enabling consumers to preview a product in its intended setting, we increase their confidence, and that makes a purchase more likely and any subsequent return due to buyer remorse far less likely."

Once a customer has chosen a particular piece and placed it in a photograph of their room, they can share the photo with their social network to gather feedback from friends and family about their choice.

"Photos are typically accompanied by a URL, which further drives traffic to the retailer's Web site," Hueso said. "The application promotes visceral connections with a retailer's brand, as customers interact with their products beyond the walls of their store or Web site. And the bottom-line result of all the experiential interaction is increased conversion rates for the retailer."

Chaikelson's expertise is in building large retail Web sites. Additionally, as product manager of a major web analytics company, he helped Fortune 500 companies optimize their websites with relevant content and targeted experiences through A/B testing programs. Hueso's background is in the film industry, most notably in the R&D department at Industrial Light & Magic, creating software used by animators and modelers in movies such as "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Spiderwick Chronicles."