Artificial Intelligence (AI) is everywhere – except in the home furnishings category. Why is it?

and retail in general ...

pinterest just LAUNCHED it and it looks awesome
More on this below

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​I always try and promote technology companies that want to enter the home furnishing category for one simple reason. Technology levels the playing field, PERIOD. It will help you show more, tell more, and sell more. Without embracing new technologies, you WILL become irrelevant like so many dominant retailers from the past that no longer exist, and the 20,000+ furniture retailers that have disappeared in the last 10 years … because they didn’t adapt, and if you don’t, there will be a place for you in history. 

You know - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

• Increase Engagement by 5X 
• Increase Conversion by 3X 
• Lower Data Maintenance Costs
• Connect Inspiration to Action
• Up to 3% additional revenue = 12 extra days of revenue per year
  Engage Non-Native Speakers Effectively

 
And this is why everyone is adapting and investing heavily into AI, integrating it into their marketing strategies because IT WORKS for search, engagement and CONVERSIONS = $$$$.

Read further, I think I found the AI solution for home furnishing retailers and it works too. The company, ​that may be our AI savior for home furnishings.

 (Click HERE for past RANTS I wrote about technology companies - http://www.social4retail.com/technologies.html)

500,000,000 images are uploaded on social media everyday!

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This new technology for the home furnishings category is perfect for furniture, rug, accessory and lighting retailers. It is also an amazing designer tool, too

The old way of doing search was through words/descriptions. The deeper the description, the more likely you would narrow your search based off the content on websites. Remember the Long Tail Book published July 11, 2006? That’s eleven years ago and was the bible for the internet then, as AI and visual search are today.

So, why am I writing about Artificial Intelligence you ask? Because embracing this phenomenon is not a fad, it is in everyday life experiences. Think everything Google, Siri, Amazon, virtual assistants and now Pinterest. You know that social platform where people interact with HOME FURNISHINGS!
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Think how you search today. You may start with key words/descriptions, but when you see something you like, what do you do? You try and find “similar” products
Think how people/you search today. You may start with key words/descriptions, but when you see something you like, what do you do? You try and find “similar” products.
Think Amazon. When you find a product, you think you like, it feeds you “like and/or similar” products below your image. And they also feed you – “Other people purchased”. That’s artificial intelligence working … for you/consumer.

By now, everyone knows that follows me I have a passion to help our retailers drive my traffic, to their website and their brick and mortar store.
Having lost close to 40% of our brick and mortar stores in the home furnishings category is nothing short of devastating. There are just too many excuses that people use for this demise, many are valid, and many are not.
​
Excuses are defined as:

​"An attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify. To release from an obligation or duty."

​Pinterest is now ALL IN with AI and You Can Too

Pinterest adds visual search for elements in images and through your camera​

​Here’s the basics about this:

​At Pinterest, we’ve developed new experimental technology that, for the first time ever, is capable of seeing the world the way you do. Now there’s a way to discover ideas without having to find the right words to describe them first.
​
It’s called Lens (currently in beta), and it lets you use the camera in your Pinterest app to discover ideas inspired by objects you see out in the real world.

Essentially it is VISUAL SEARCH. You see it, you like it, it will show you similar images. Here is why they say it works

​“Early information technology used words to connect ideas, like hyperlinks,” co-founder and chief product officer Evan Sharp said. “Search engines we built today have drafted on that, they rely on words to get you answers to your questions. But when it comes to searching for ideas, words aren’t the right way. Sometimes you don’t really know what you’re looking for until you see it.”

So let’s break down each product, starting with the most important one, Lens. That gives users a way to open their camera, look at any image and Pinterest’s Lens feature will automatically pick apart the objects in an image. That can drill down into foods, animals, or even patterns like hexagons. That gives users the ability to start searching for related elements through that.

Exactly and when it comes to home furnishings, we have a language all to ourselves

Just point Lens at a pair of shoes, then tap to see related styles or even ideas for what else to wear them with. Or try it on a table to find similar designs, and even other furniture from the same era. You can also use Lens with food. Just point it at broccoli or a pomegranate to see what recipes come up. Patterns and colors can also lead you in fun, interesting or even just plain weird new directions.

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​According to a new study by researchers at the University of Minnesota and Georgia Tech the most popular topics on Pinterest for women includes:

As you will notice, Women engage with Home & Décor and it’s #3 with women in two of the most important areas on this site:

MOST PINNED CATEGORIES:

1. Food & Drink
2. DIY & Crafts
   
3. Home Décor

MOST BROWSED CATEGORIES:

1. Food & Drink
2. DIY & Crafts
3. Home Décor

Holidays & Events

1. Food & Drink
2. DIY & Crafts
   
3. Home Décor

men on pinterest

1. ​Photography
2. Art
3. Design
4. Home decor

Do you want to engage Millennial/Social Customers? Ask for their pinterest board and let them discover what you sell based on their "terms" and what they like. 
The best part of this concept is their Pinterest Boards convey your customers taste and preferences and their search for what inspires their design has been narrowed significantly.

The best part of integrating artificial intelligence is that it works for your website, your sales people, designers, merchandisers and more. ​

So back to Visual Search. Why would you NOT want an artificial intelligence app that is part of your web platform and as a tool for your salespeople to help customers FIND THEIR LOOK, especially if it’s affordable, easy to integrate and has been proven virtually everywhere on every platform that it works? (If it didn’t, no one would be using it and constantly improve on it).

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Think about how this could work on your website
​Video example below

I'll just call this as I see it. Most furniture retailer websites are just plain BAD. They don't show a ton of product, some don't have prices (REALLY), many don't have a narrow your search option and so on and so on.

Those that have a narrow your search have terms like transitional or other terms we as an industry use that consumers have no clue what that means, frustrating people on the website looking for what THEY want.  (Take a look at your "time on site" analytics. If it's less than 90 seconds, you have a problem).

​Enter AI ...

• Customer finds something they like and they click on it. The AI App takes over and immediately shows “like” products.
• ​Customer takes a picture, or has the URL of the product they are looking for. They upload the picture into your AI App, or paste the URL and it finds “Like Products”.

Take the information below as an example.

Customer finds this hot red sofa and either clicks on it, uploads a picture, or copies & pastes the URL

For items that are not tagged with color or possibly tagged incorrectly with a color, they can tag every product in a catalog with it’s EXACT color (RGB value).  Additionally, this allows the use case “I’d like to see a similar red couch but a darker shade of red”

Additionally, if they are given your full catalog, they can analyze your "METADATA" and find errors and items that may be tagged incorrectly for common search terms

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How it works for rugs - same principal, different product category

Click the images to enlarge

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and lighting ...

accessories

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How about as a sales tool in-store

 A customer comes in your store with an image, a URL and wants to know if you have anything similar OR a Customer emails you a link or an product image on their mobile phone or even a magazine picture which you can then use this tool, BOOM, the salesperson takes that information and instantly shows everything similar in your catalog – yes, I said catalog, not just what’s on the floor or if it's a web inquiry, they send them back page-links that show them all the options available from YOUR catalog.

Now you have even more reasons to put everything you have open to buy in your website to compete with all those e-commerce goliaths … you know the companies that all do ONLY special order because they don’t have storefronts.
​
I did a demo with this company, and it looks awesome. 

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My conclusion

​The home furnishings category is one that most technology companies ignore for a variety of reasons. Primarily because it is made up of small/medium sized retailers with few national players. To penetrate this category, you also must be an insider because we don’t readily accept outsiders for whatever reason as I wrote about;

​THE FURNITURE WARS - HOW AMERICA LOST A $50BN INDUSTRY –
And How We Will Continue To Lose Even More If We Don't Change. 

Technology is scary, especially if you are not tech oriented, but what is scarier?
Losing your business, laying off employees and having to revert to that ubiquitous LIQUIDATION SALE​

resources

http://www.business2community.com/pinterest/want-pinterest-followers-create-top-10-pinterest-boards-users-love-follow-0918492
https://blog.pinterest.com/en/search-outside-box-new-pinterest-visual-discovery-tools
http://www.instyle.com/news/pinterest-new-features-shop-look-lens-instant-ideas
http://www.longtail.com/about.html