Revolutionising the Furniture Industry: How Spacewood Leverages AI to Redefine Customer Experience
From humble carpentry workshops to virtual reality showrooms, the furniture industry has undergone a remarkable transformation. The way we buy furniture is changing. Nimish Thaker, Head of Marketing at Spacewood, sheds light on this evolution, revealing how this leading modular furniture manufacturer is putting customers first. From personalised AR experiences to AI-powered design tools, Spacewood is making furniture shopping more engaging, efficient, and exciting than ever before.
Key Highlights from the Interview
- AI and AR Integration: Spacewood is exploring AI and AR tools to offer personalised furniture solutions and enable customers to visualise products in their homes.
- Operational Efficiency: AI-powered tools, such as those for 3D image rendering, are expected to significantly improve efficiency by reducing production timelines and enhancing product presentation.
- Challenges and Expectations: With 90% of the furniture industry unorganised, there is a pressing need for tools and solutions tailored specifically for this sector to bring structure and inclusivity to smaller players.
- Future Trends: AR, AI-driven personalisation, and tech adoption among manufacturers are expected to reshape the furniture industry in the next 3-5 years, providing opportunities for innovation and customer-centric growth.
- Aggregator-Manufacturer Collaboration: Aggregators rely on manufacturers for quality products, but manufacturers are poised to lead the industry transformation as they embrace tech-enabled solutions.
“Incorporating technologies like AR and VR, similar to the 'place it' feature on some e-commerce platforms, will allow customers to visualise furniture in their homes before purchasing.”
Could you share a brief overview of your professional journey, which led you to your current position as Head of Marketing at Spacewood?
Nimish: My career journey began in Pune. After completing my MBA, I joined Volkswagen as a management trainee, handling brand, corporate and promotional events. This role was a blend of sales and marketing, which gave me early exposure to both domains. I worked there for about 8-9 months.
Following that, I joined Times Business Solutions, again focusing on sales in Pune. These early experiences laid a solid foundation for my career.
In December 2012, I joined Spacewood, where I’ve spent the past 12 years shaping my marketing career. Initially, my role revolved around ATL (Above The Line) activities, including print media and radio. Over time, I transitioned into digital marketing and took on additional responsibilities like CRM.
Today, I lead a dynamic team, including graphic designers, managing various marketing functions. My marketing journey at Spacewood has been as long as my overall professional journey, making it a significant part of my career development.
How do you see AI influencing your role specifically and the domain as a whole?
Nimish: The furniture industry, especially the segment I work in, has transformed significantly over the years, evolving into a lifestyle-centric domain. Furniture has become an integral part of home design, with modern consumers prioritising both aesthetics and functionality. Unlike previous generations, where furniture was a long-term investment passed down through generations, today’s customers are more design-conscious and frequently update their homes to reflect changing trends.
Spacewood is a 28-year-old company that specialises in manufacturing modular, panel-based furniture. While we cater to both B2B and B2C markets, our marketing and promotional efforts primarily focus on the B2C segment. Our product range includes both ready-made and customisable furniture. To enhance the customer experience and address industry challenges, we are exploring advanced AI and augmented reality (AR) solutions.
One area where AR proves valuable is in helping customers visualise products like sofas or tables in their own spaces. Using AR, they can virtually place furniture in their rooms, gaining a clear understanding of how the product will look and fit.
AI offers a solution to one of our biggest challenges: creating high-quality product images. Currently, producing a 3D-rendered image is time-intensive, often taking up to 2 days. However, we are in discussions with a Bangalore-based company that provides an AI tool capable of generating professional-quality images in under two minutes. This tool allows us to capture a product photo using a smartphone, change its background, and enhance its appearance instantly, simplifying what was previously a labour-intensive process.
This AI-powered tool is particularly important for our industry, given the extensive range of SKUs we handle. For instance, one of our verticals alone includes over 450 SKUs. Creating visually appealing and customised images for each product in various room settings is a daunting task. By adopting this AI solution, we can streamline the process, enhance the overall look and feel of our products, and present them more effectively to our customers.
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How has Spacewood integrated AI into its marketing operations?
Nimish: Currently, we are in the early stages of exploring AI and other advanced technologies, as I mentioned earlier. While we haven’t fully integrated AI into our operations yet, we are making strides by implementing tools like WhatsApp chatbots. These tools are helping us identify customer requirements and streamline our processes.
Given the diverse range of product verticals at Spacewood, understanding customer needs can be challenging. Our chatbot, for example, gathers essential information, such as whether the customer is furnishing a new home or renovating an existing one. This helps us tailor our solutions more effectively. Depending on the type of project—be it a 2BHK or 3BHK apartment—and the available square footage, our design team can provide customised recommendations that align with the client’s requirements.
We’re still in the exploratory phase, evaluating which tools and solutions best fit our needs. At the same time, we are leveraging accessible tools like Canva and ChatGPT to improve efficiency. Canva, for instance, allows us to create professional-quality visuals and basic video editing without always relying on external agencies or graphic designers. This has been particularly helpful during periods of high workload, enabling quicker turnarounds and enhanced productivity.
These tools have already made a significant impact by increasing our operational efficiency and output, especially in content creation and campaign management. As we continue to explore AI and other advanced technologies, we aim to further enhance our ability to deliver high-quality, customised solutions to our customers.
Are there any concerns regarding data management, data quality, or data privacy when incorporating AI into your marketing efforts?
Nimish: We don’t face significant concerns regarding data regulations or privacy at the moment. The nature of our product—a need-based item like furniture—doesn’t generate a high volume of data inflow. People typically inquire about our products when they’re buying a new home or renovating, which are specific, planned events.
Our data primarily consists of inquiries from individuals who are actively considering home improvement projects or planning to do so in the near future, such as within the next couple of years. This focused target group makes our data management relatively straightforward.
As for privacy, since the volume of leads we handle is limited, we can manage and work with this data effectively without encountering major challenges related to data privacy or overwhelming lead inflows.
Your current AI-driven approach appears to focus on enhancing personalisation and customer experience through your SKUs. Could you elaborate on what specific outcomes you aim to achieve with this strategy? Are there any measurable improvements you expect to see as a result of implementing this AI-driven approach?
Nimish: Our primary aspiration is to leverage AI to enhance the personalised furniture customisation process. For example, using AI, we aim to analyse a customer’s layout and provide tailored design suggestions and product inputs.
Incorporating technologies like AR and VR, similar to the ‘place it’ feature on platforms like Amazon, will allow customers to visualise furniture in their homes before purchasing. While we’ve started implementing this manually in select stores, we plan to scale it universally across all platforms. Currently, this process is manual, requiring store personnel to visit the customer’s home—a time-consuming approach. AI will help streamline this by reducing reliance on manual efforts.
Every home has unique requirements, especially when it comes to storage, kitchens, or wardrobes. By utilising AI, we can offer more precise solutions, reduce the number of SKUs, and focus on the most effective designs in the market. This will not only optimise our offerings but also significantly shorten the time required to suggest a solution.
From the customer’s perspective, this approach will elevate their experience by enabling faster and more customised visualisation of products through AR, replacing traditional booklets with interactive digital options. Ultimately, this will accelerate the sales cycle, allowing us to provide quotes and deliver products more efficiently, reducing the current lead time of 45 days.
What emerging AI trends do you foresee influencing the furniture industry in the next 3-5 years?
Nimish: In the furniture industry, there are two primary categories that brands typically operate in: customised furniture and ready-made furniture.
Customised furniture includes design-and-build services, where brands like Livspace and Homelane take on entire home projects, creating bespoke solutions tailored to individual customer needs.
Ready-made furniture involves stock-and-sell products sold online or through dealer networks by platforms like Pepperfry, Flipkart, and Amazon.
At Spacewood, we are fortunate to operate in both these categories, which opens up diverse opportunities for growth and innovation.
Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming a pivotal tool across the industry, enabling customers to visualise furniture in their spaces before purchasing. Platforms like Amazon, Pepperfry, and Furlenco are already leveraging AR, especially as they are aggregator platforms. However, when it comes to manufacturing brands like Spacewood, Godrej, and Featherlite, there is still a transition happening. While aggregators are inherently tech-enabled, traditional manufacturing companies are gradually adopting AI-driven and AR solutions.
This shift will take time but is expected to gain significant traction in the next 2-3 years as these tools become essential for direct customer engagement and enhancing the buying experience.
Do you believe aggregators are currently ahead in leveraging AI effectively compared to traditional manufacturers?
Nimish: Aggregators may be ahead in terms of being tech-enabled, but they are heavily reliant on manufacturing companies for their survival. While some aggregators have launched private labels, customers still prefer branded furniture over non-branded options due to the trust and reputation established by manufacturers over the years.
The real shift will come when manufacturing companies fully embrace tech-enabled solutions. This evolution will be a game-changer in the next 3-4 years. Just as automobile brands now offer customisation and standardised options, furniture brands will likely follow suit, providing tailored solutions that align with customer preferences and industry trends.
As someone in the implementation journey, we want to know your expectations from this report. What do you believe would be the most valuable data point or subject matter for you in this report?
Nimish: The furniture industry often finds itself overlooked, as it doesn’t neatly fall into categories like FMCG or white goods. It’s a distinct industry with its own unique needs and challenges. Having tailored solutions or tools specifically designed for the furniture industry would be incredibly valuable.
Currently, only about 10% of the furniture industry is organised, while 90% remains unorganised. However, with the right tools and guidelines, even non-branded players can begin entering the mainstream, helping to bridge this gap and bring more structure to the industry. Solutions that address these specific dynamics would be a game-changer.
