Shaw Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of Berkshire-Hathaway, Inc., is the world's largest manufacturer of tufted broadloom carpet (www.shawfloors.com). Shaw sells carpeting and rugs for residential and commercial applications throughout the U.S. and exports to most markets worldwide with products available through its network of commercial dealers. Traditionally, Shaw did not market directly to consumers; however, it recently began connecting with consumers online and embarked on a site redesign and campaign to elevate its brand.

Best Practices:
Shaw engaged Resource Interactive, who, following intensive consumer research, designed and positioned ShawFloors.com to empower the consumer when making flooring decisions. Accordingly, the redesign included a broader product visualization tool for consumers to dynamically create rooms and visualize Shaw products prior to purchase, as well as a back office image publishing tool that allows the Web team to easily update content for the design application.
 
Resource Interactive turned to Scene7’s rich media platform to develop Shaw's application.  "We chose Scene7 for its impressive online visualization capabilities, as well as its back-office publishing system that dynamically serves rich content, such as zoom, enlarge and alternative views, into the design tool and product pages," said Kelly Mooney, Chief Experience Officer for Resource Interactive.

ShawFloors.com's Try On A Floor(SM) visualization tool, built using the Scene7 rich media platform and Adobe® Flex™ and Flash™ technology, currently offers visitors 44 different room scenes from its Idea Gallery and Visualization Tool that engages and inspires users to select stock room imagery similar to their own rooms and apply Shaw flooring. Visitors have the option at the beginning to narrow their selections by room type, flooring type or style. Users can choose from among eight different room types: living room, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, kids room, foyer, bath and other; seven various styles: contemporary, casual, coastal, transitional, European, rustic and traditional; and five different floor categories: carpet, ceramic, hardwood, laminate and area rug. After selecting a room scene or style, users are prompted to select a flooring category from the list of options, select an area rug and customize other surfaces such as walls and trim to visualize complete room results prior to purchase.  Users can rotate flooring as well as enlarge room scenes to see more intricate details.  With thousands of floor coverings to choose from, visitors have an almost infinite range of custom designs they can visually configure. 

In addition to the floor designer, the Shaw site utilizes Scene7 OnDemand for dynamic sizing of all its product imagery across its entire site, including product thumbnails and product detail pages, to show crisp images of flooring swatches, room views with flooring products that can be dynamically changed, as well as to enable zoom for clear views of an item's texture, color or pattern. Scene7 dynamically generates all sizes using original high-resolution imagery and image commands, eliminating any need for manual production.

Results:
Prior to the site redesign, ShawFloors.com displayed products via individualized swatches with pan and zoom features.  The site did not allow for dynamic visualization in the context of a room scene and offered only a limited inventory of product images. With Scene7, all product imagery is dynamically sized and served into Shaw's site, eliminating manual image production work and shortening the time it takes to add products and make site updates.  Scene7's one-of-a-kind dynamic rendering allows for any digital texture, finish, surface or material to be applied realistically onto any item or room scene imagery.

"Deciding on floor coverings can be a lengthy and complex process, especially when consumers cannot see how their selections will look until they purchase items and put them in their homes," said Todd Callaway, Interactive Marketing Manager for Shaw Industries. "Our new site design takes a different approach by empowering consumers with visualization tools to view products in a room context, simplifying the flooring selection and decision making process. By offering more robust visualization features online, along with the ability to dynamically display products, we have successfully improved our brand equity and helped consumers enjoy their experiences shopping for flooring."

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