Q&A: Online home furnishings brand goes high-touch, high-service
Eighteen year-old online home décor and furnishings brand ATGStores.com has a new name, a new look and a new focus on personalized, one-on-one service.
Eighteen year-old online home décor and furnishings brand ATGStores.com has a new name, a new look and a new focus on personalized, one-on-one service.
Acquired by Lowe’s Companies in 2011, ATG recently changed its name to The Mine as part of a major rebranding that features an added emphasis on high-end designer partnerships and an improved user experience to better engage shoppers and drive conversions. With such new tools as state-of-the art 3D imaging technology, The Mine offers a more interactive experience designed to inspire shoppers and help make their design ideas a reality. It also offers a personal concierge service to
Michele Newbery, president of The Mine, shared her thoughts about the brand’s evolution — and expectations — with our sister publication Chain Store Age.
Tell us about the company’s evolution?
Since Lowe’s acquired us at the end of 2011, we have been evolving our brand to better target and engage customers.
We know that 70% of shoppers start their home journey online, and 35% are purchasing furniture digitally — and the amount of shoppers that becoming receptive to the online furniture space is growing. To target these shoppers, we’ve implemented some key solutions — a move that would also help us reintroduce the company. On April 25, we launched our new redesigned site, TheMine.com.
How does The Mine interact with Lowe’s?
As a division of Lowe’s, we tap their resources so that we can move nimbly, but we operate independently. We are headquartered right near Lowe’s Innovation Labs, in Kirkland, Wash. We love to run over and explore the technologies as often as we can. This helped us decide which solutions would be priorities.
How did you prepare for the relaunch?
As customers become more interested and confident buying large items online, we knew to attract and retain these shoppers we had to deliver a quick, easy, and overall, killer experience. To prepare, we immediately scaled back our assortment from a cumbersome four million SKUs down to one million. We made sure these SKUs offered great variety and quality, and also had top-notch designer partners.
We are working with inspirational companies, including Eddie Ross, Alexa Hampton, Jonathan Adler and Heritage Home Group, among others, and we will continue on boarding other partners throughout 2017. By infusing photography and curating merchandise in different ways, we are delivering a high-quality experience that offers a variety of ways to redesign their home spaces.
To encourage traction, we are kicking off our “52 Weeks of Design” campaign, which will introduce a new designer or influencer each week. They will provide inspiration through curated merchandise, Q&As, and other features to introduce them to our consumers.
How are you driving customer engagement through your brand?
Delivering exceptional service is important, especially in an online world. We have included 3D imagery in approximately 100 items in our catalog as a means of helping our shoppers build confidence while shopping online. Shoppers can interact with the merchandise by zooming in on finishes and textures, allowing them to make a more educated decision before making a purchase.
To keep the site high-touch, we also offer a “personal concierge” live chat service that allows shoppers to engage with associates if they need assistance with orders, want to discuss ideas, as well as find merchandise quickly. We chose this method over a chat bot to keep the interaction more personal.
Shoppers can also contact us via email or a customer service line. While we are still in the process of testing and learning from these interactions, 10% sales are being assisted by our team either via phone or chat.
How do you think the enhancements will impact sales?
We expect the rebranding to positively impact our conversion rate and average ticket volume. This year, our conversion rate has already increased more than 30%, and our average ticket has improved by more than 20%. We credit this growth to a combination of streamlined product, personal concierge and merchandise that is inspiring our consumer to shop, and at a higher rate.
What’s next?
We are considering our next technology improvements. We already have 3D in place, and we are evaluating how shoppers are interacting with the technology, and how we can further optimize this solution to meet their needs. Looking ahead, we are interested in tools that will help our customers focus on their creativity.
By partnering with strategic influencers, especially those in the Lowe’s Innovation Labs, we can evaluate what tools will be valuable to implement online.