Buying furniture online may give you more options and sometimes better prices than doing it in person, but it can also feel like a gamble. The product that shows up on your doorstep can often look pretty different from the way it looked online — and returning an armchair is a much more daunting prospect than shipping back a shirt that didn’t quite fit or phone case that looks shoddier than expected. The Mine wants to make the online furniture and décor shopping experience a little more tangible.
Formerly ATGStores.com, the Mine relaunched today as more of a one-stop experience with one-on-one help. “Our intent is to have one website where you can reimagine and redesign your home space, you can source the products from the same site, and then also schedule installation and assembly with our strategic partners,” The Mine president Michelle Newbery told Digital Trends. “We take care of all that for our customers.” The complimentary Personal Concierge service lets you connect with someone on the Mine team to ask questions about products, find a specific item, or get help with a design project.
As part of Lowe’s, The Mine has access to its Innovation Lab, and it’s using some of its technology to make 3D images of its products and lifestyle shoots. Starting with about 100 products, the images let you get a fuller view of a chair’s legs or the fabric on a couch. “With the 3D imaging, our intent is really to bring that product closer to the consumer,” said Newbery. “Maybe you can’t still technically touch it, but you can interact with it. You can bring it closer to you, you can spin it around, you can look at the texture to help really build confidence with shopping online.” With the lifestyle images, visitors to the site will be able to get a more immersive look at how the furniture looks in staged rooms.
After reducing its curated selections from four million products to one million, The Mine is focusing on certain brands that don’t have as much of an online presence, such as Bunny Williams Home and Mr. and Mrs. Howard. Newbery says the site’s typical customer will be someone who’s “a little more particular and wants their home to look different from their neighbors’.”
Updated 5/10/2017: Updated to correct the spelling of Michelle Newbery’s name.
