National Business Furniture
Milwaukee
www.nationalbusinessfurniture.com
Innovation: Virtual Visit Concept
Kent Anderson, president at National Business Furniture, has always tried to re-envision the online shopping experience for his customers. The National Business Furniture website currently features search amenities, the ability to send fabric swatches, and pre-recorded 360-degree videos of specific products.
And Anderson expects the latest change in the website will be a game changer for the industry.
National Business Furniture has opened a showroom for its online customers in a 15,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by an Old Navy store in The Shops of Grand Avenue in downtown Milwaukee.
The showroom will allow online customers to live video chat with National Business Furniture consultants who are in the store, Anderson said.
“The goal of this latest convenience is to help consumers get over the purchasing hump with large ticket, hard to return items,” Anderson said. “This seemed like the next logical step for our website.”
Website visitors can directly connect with NBF sales representatives in the showroom. Salespeople are equipped with high-quality, portable, wireless cameras. The video is one way, and allows consumers to get live product demonstrations, measurements, color matching sequences or anything else they’d like to know about the product.
“It’s the next best thing to seeing the piece in person,” Anderson said. “A lot of times with business furniture, you don’t have the luxury of going to a physical location to test it out or see the product. We believe this service bridges the gap between retail shopping and web shopping.”
