For decades, kitchen and bath showrooms have relied on rows upon rows of products to tell their story, but with times changing, Danze is looking toward the future. The company is trying to determine how the high-tech world of the Internet can be combined with the high-touch world of a physical showroom location.
According to Michael Werner, CEO of Danze, Inc., capitalizing on the technology that is often daunting to showroom owners is what will make their businesses stand out and be successful in the years to come. “We’ve spent hundreds of hours understanding how homeowners shop, how showrooms operate and how to best intertwine those worlds,” he said. “We found that while the majority of homeowners go online first to research kitchen and bath products, more than 90 percent of them go to a physical location to buy. They want to see it in person and touch it before they actually purchase.”
“We knew we had to create an entirely new shopping experience for our showroom partners and the customers and professionals who visit them,” said Werner. “But we also wanted to make it easy for the showrooms to operate and succeed.”
In response to their research, Danze has created an interactive and efficient display program. The new display incorporates custom-designed acrylic display pods with radio-frequency identification technology, a Smart Shelf that triggers interactive on-screen content and a Touchscreen Display that gives users the opportunity to view products in different finishes, read technical spec sheets and scroll through other product choices.
The interactive features of the showroom displays will soon link to various videos, idea books, designer and trend sites, inspiration pages and give users the ability to post finds on Pinterest, Facebook or other social media channels. The Showroom of the Future is currently displayed in select Ferguson locations throughout the U.S. The program will be available to other showroom partners in 2015.
