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July 18, 2024
Over the past few years, the idea has witnessed a steady uptick, leading furniture businesses to save heavily on labor and shipping costs. Customers, on the other hand, have had mixed reactions. Some have enjoyed assembling their furniture, even calling it therapeutic. Others, however, didn’t find the experience as fun as expected. Why, you ask? Most of them had a unanimous complaint: the instructions were very confusing.
Before we move any further, let’s understand why clear instructions are a requisite for ready-to-assemble furniture.
Ready-to-assemble furniture is a win-win situation for both manufacturers and customers, given customers understand what they’re supposed to do. Studies show that if people are able to assemble your furniture without any roadblocks, they’re expected to value it more.
This is because building something with your own sweat and blood adds value to the product in addition to its inherent value. On the other hand, a furniture business does not have to worry about high delivery costs of bulky items or returns due to breakages when selling RTA furniture.
If RTA custom furniture is so great, why are customers still unsatisfied? Is custom-made furniture more expensive? Or are there issues within the assembly process?
The answer is unclear instructions. Confusing instructions frustrate customers, directly impacting how they perceive your brand and the probability of future transactions. In contrast, if they can assemble your furniture without any roadblocks, they’re expected to value it more. Thus, crystal-clear instructions are a must.
Here is how you can improve how you convey instructions to your customers for ready-to-assemble furniture to ensure a smooth customer experience for your buyers.
When customers view your product online, the product description is one of the first things they read. It doesn’t just describe your product; it also includes details about its features and functionality.
Product Manuals play a pivotal role in assembling ready-to-assemble furniture. They typically include information on setting up the furniture, operating it, and following maintenance guidelines.
Your product manual should provide clear instructions in very basic terms. Think of it as explaining something to a toddler. For example, instead of saying, ‘Affix the upper arms to the structural framework of the seating,’ just say, ‘Attach the arms to the seat frame.’
Additionally, add a lot of graphics. Studies show that most people are visual learners. In a study by NCBI, 65% of people said that they learn best through visual means. You can include product breakdowns in your manual to help customers understand what goes where and how. Product breakdown renders can be used to display the structure of components of a visually disassembled furniture piece to highlight each part's function and assembly.
For example, Nuu Garden’s instruction manuals explain the assembly process in fairly simple terms with graphic representations of the assembly steps, making it easier for customers to understand the instructions.
Video manuals demonstrate the assembly process of ready-to-assemble furniture. Studies have shown that people retain 95% of a video’s message compared to 10% when reading text. Thus, adding video manuals to your social media pages and website makes it easier for even unskilled people to follow instructions and complete complex tasks easily.
Meble Furniture, for example, has a collection of more than 50 video manuals, enabling users to assemble furniture at home with relative simplicity.
Ikarus Delta’s Product Breakdowns can be incorporated into videos to create simple breakdown videos of the assembly process.
You can integrate a 3D product configurator into your website to increase interactivity and provide visual representations of the instructions. Using a 3D Configurator, customers can view different assembly process steps according to their requirements. Product Breakdowns using the configurator can visually aid customers in understanding where different furniture parts fit.
Ikarus Delta’s 3D Product Configurator can help customers visualize the stages of assembling their furniture, giving them a better understanding of the overall product outcome.
The assembly of furniture purchased online poses a big problem to customers, especially those who are not very handy and unfamiliar with basic spatial abilities. This leads to them resorting to already assembled furniture from retail stores despite them liking your product more.
A smooth customer experience is a priority for an online furniture business operating in a highly competitive environment. Carefully curated video manuals and website-integrated 3D configurators can help solve the problem of confusing instruction manuals and guides for customers.
Contact us at [email protected] to learn more about 3D breakdowns and video manuals for your furniture business, eliminating the difficulty caused by confusing instructional manuals.