The Challenge
A high-consideration purchase with low visual certainty
Buying a premium handmade rug is both emotional and financial.
Online shoppers often struggled with:
- Visualising the rug within their actual room
- Understanding scale and proportion
- Seeing colour and texture under realistic lighting
According to Harvard Business Review, customer confidence directly shapes purchasing decisions, and uncertainty was the main barrier here.
Rising ecommerce expectations
Shopify’s annual Commerce Trends report highlights that visual sophistication and personalisation are now baseline customer expectations.
Without tools to match market standards, Tufenkian risked:
- Lower conversion
- Higher return rates
- More scale-related customer enquiries
- Reduced engagement from design professionals
Operational inefficiencies
Producing custom imagery for every rug was slowing launches and draining resources. Marketing teams had limited creative bandwidth to experiment with new looks or campaigns.
The Solution
Digitising the collection
Imersian created high-fidelity digital twins of Tufenkian’s catalogue using:
- Ultra-high-resolution texture and fibre scans
- True-to-scale geometry
- Colour-accurate pre-calibrated profiles
- Lighting-consistent renders to reduce visual discrepancies
This ensured every rug retained its handmade character and visual depth, the type of detail often celebrated by Architectural Digest
Building the visualisation experience
Shoppers could now:
- Upload a room photo
- Instantly place rugs in correct scale
- Preview colour, texture, and pattern in realistic lighting
- View everything through a lightweight mobile-friendly interface
All in a three-tap journey from product page to room preview.
Deep Shopify integration
The visualiser became a core part of the product page:
- Positioned directly next to Add to Cart buttons
- Clear CTA: “See this rug in your room”
- Event tracking for engagement translated to conversion mapping
- Automated asset syncing for catalogue updates
The Results
Key performer metrics (first 90 days)
- 40% increase in online conversion rate
- 34% rise in product-page engagement
- 23% reduction in scale-related customer questions
- Strong growth in mobile purchases
Why customers converted faster
Visualiser users demonstrated:
- Higher add-to-cart rates
- Longer on-site sessions
- More return visits
- Far higher checkout completion
Visual certainty turned hesitation into confidence, the turning point in any high-consideration category.
Marketing transformation
Digital twins powered:
- Room-based creatives for paid social
- Personalised “See this in your space” email flows
- Retargeting ads using saved room previews
CTR increased, bounce decreased, and shoppers arrived more prepared to engage.
Lessons Learned
1. Visual certainty builds trust.
Confident shoppers make faster decisions.
2. Integration should feel native.
The visualiser performed best as a natural part of the PDP, not an add-on.
3. Behaviour reveals the roadmap.
CTA placement, layout, and messaging were refined through user behaviour patterns.
What This Means for Other Retailers
For products where scale and material matter, advanced visualisation isn’t just an enhancement, it’s a conversion engine. High-consideration categories see the strongest gains.
When shoppers can picture your product in their space, every part of the funnel lifts. It’s design magic with commercial impact.
