Why experience, not ecommerce, is driving King Living’s digital revamp

Although King Living had an online presence for many years, it was a brochure-style website. Digital functioned as a home for the product guides rather than a separate but related experience for the premium furniture designer and manufacturer.
 

“The focus was always on showrooms because the product is very personalised. It’s made to order. That’s the core of the business,” King Living chief experience officer, Vanja Stace, told CMO.
 

Since its inception in 1977, King Living has grown to include 25 showrooms across six websites and seven countries. Product personalisation has always been the core through this direct-to-consumer retail experience – until the pandemic.
 

From digital brochure to digital destination
 

The global crisis gave King Living an urgency to “understand what omnichannel really means and to stop relying solely on showrooms” to reach targets and budgets, Stace said. At the outset, the immediate need was converting the website, which hadn’t been ecommerce, mobile-first or customer experience-focused, into a shoppable destination.
 

To do this, the team took a minimum viable product (MVP) approach, adding features as lockdowns prevented the showrooms from being the sales destination. Having joined the retailer after this initial phase, Stace realised it was important to learn more about how the website was changing the showroom experience once things opened up again.
 

“I spent time in showrooms sitting and watching customers being sold to by our retail team and really trying to understand why we do so well in showrooms,” she said.
 

With the brand’s point of difference how it sells the products, Stace started thinking about how to bring that experience online. She realised being in a considered category with a significant showroom influence presented an opportunity to replicate as much of that as possible online while stoking that discovery stage.
 

“It was no longer just having a shoppable website or making it better or easier to transact digitally; it was how to support this product premium product, which has a long consideration phase,” Stace said.
 

To do this, the team started at the end and stepped back to identify the gaps and reconfigure the site to fuel consideration and do some of the work of the showroom.
 

“I had to ask: ‘How do I actually achieve that? What do I need?’ I realised I can’t make any improvements without first having data, experience data, about what is currently happening,” Stace explained. “What are the opportunities? And where are we actually failing? You know, where are we just basically leaving money on the table?