How a shopper proceeds with turning a house into a home is without a doubt one of the most important decisions a homeowner or renter can make. Shoppers looking to buy goods for a home want to build from the ground up. However, they aren’t going to put up with a complex and frustrating process, when really it should be simple and exciting to search and find the items they really want.
To get home merchandise moving from the store through the shopper’s front door, extensive human-crafted, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered product attributes – also known as the language of the customer – is something to make room for as a retailer.
To help shoppers turn their house into a home with the power AI, we sat down and talked with Amy Chong, Lily AI’s Senior Styling Manager, on some of the top trends in home right now and how to deliver on home product conversion and sell-through.
How are home products attributed? How does this differ from fashion?
In general, home items are costly to produce in comparison to fashion or beauty items. Subsequently, the home trend cycle moves much slower.
Home product attributes are tagged with detailed, very specific attributes that noticeably differ from fashion, for example:
- Fabric/Material | A piece of home decor may be made out of glass, wood, metals, or other fabrics/materials – typically ones that are not applicable to an item of clothing.
- Shape | What kind of shape is the furniture? Is it round, rectangular, or geometric?
- Leg Shape | Think cabriole, saber, or turned.
- Wood/Tone | Wood is not all one tone – it can be dark, gray, red, white, medium, and light.
- Details | Pieces of home decor are detailed with beveled-edges, curved-arms, and more.
- Embellishments | Think foiled, embroidered, frayed, and distressed.
- Prints/Patterns | Home decor can feature an array of patterns, from speckled, to floral, to animal print.
- Material/Treatment/Finish | Is the furniture shiny, glossy, frosted, or possibly matte?
- Color/Color Family | Think light vs. dark colors, jewel tones, and more. It’s important to get specific here – olive can be both light and dark and many colors have to be considered (i.e., teal, turquoise, blush, lavender, sapphire, terracotta).
What are the most important aspects to consider with attributing home products? How can Lily AI address this?
One of the most important aspects to consider is color, as this can vary greatly, and needs to be captured all across the board (or color wheel) in order to keep the shopper’s eye from wandering to the next retailer’s site. The color should not look or read one way online and then translate differently in person. Lily AI has a very accurate grasp on pattern, size, and color swatches.
The most challenging and important part for shoppers is for them to find the right item. When a shopper is on your site and they search for a “dining table” then they shouldn’t be getting results for all random types of tables. Filters and facets should also be appropriately categorized so the right items can be found for the right settings – i.e., the living room, kitchen, or a room for entertaining. Categorization is a big deal and something Lily AI can help to streamline.
With the current focus on holidays, Lily AI can work with the top different home decor styles and cover any of the holidays coming up, quickly being able to get items attributed for shoppers to locate what they’re looking for without the hassle.
What are the trends in home decor right now?
When it comes to home trends, there are typically a few trend changes per year, as opposed to dozens upon dozens of trend changes like the fashion world sees. Trends with home often shift with what’s going on around us and where we are in the year. For instance, right now, the trends in home decor are centered around the holidays, specifically around color. With the changes of seasons, people want to be surrounded by the colors that reflect what’s going on around them.
Some other home decor trends that are currently circulating for this fall and winter are:
- Color – Saturated and vibrant colors, along with colors found in nature.
- Prints & Pattern – A mix between feminine botanicals and classic geometrics.
- Materials & Treatment/Finishes – Materials that are found in nature, along with a focus on textures and fabrics like velvet, corduroy, and felt.
- Themes – Celestial (constellations, astrology, zodiac signs, and tarot) & Biomimicry (designs that visually resemble elements from life – i.e. they “look like” nature but also function or “work like” nature).
