Tom Dixon wanted an e-commerce experience as iconic as his lighting and furniture

Tom Dixon is one of Britain’s most successful designers. The Tom Dixon brand is a modern British institution with a presence in 65 countries worldwide. It boasts flagship showrooms in London, New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, complimented by many third-party websites and retail shops around the globe, which sell furniture online.

Widely known for his unique lighting and furniture collections, Dixon focuses not only on design, but on defying the conventions of industry to create innovative pieces and special experiences. In 2012, at Milan’s Museum of Science and Technology (MOST), Dixon install a 62-ton press to produce his unique designs on-demand. For the first time, industrial manufacturing was put in full view of the public. There, customers received their finished product straight from the production line.

As this was such an important project for Tom Dixon, finding the right creative and development partner was essential. After reviewing and interviewing over 10 possible agencies they decided upon solution partner SOtechnology. The award-winning design and technology company connected with the Tom Dixon team, sharing their excitement and passionate for the project and becoming an integral part of Tom Dixon's internal digital team.

New way to sell furniture online — a transformed digital experience

Tom Dixon had grown frustrated by the traditional model of selling furniture online and distribution, which created a disconnect between the designer and customer. He found there is no direct interaction and it takes too long to deliver products to customers. Dixon wanted to push the envelope and try something new. The fashion e-commerce industry provided inspiration as it edged towards D2C sales via e-commerce. Adobe Commerce empowered the brand’s passion and creativity. The site design process kicked off in March 2016 and after seven months of design, planning and development, the new e-commerce website to sell furniture online launched in October 2016.

Much of the site was created with out-of-box Adobe Commerce features, with customisations available through the Marketplace. High-quality content and imagery drive the look and feel of the new site, which is structured around specific customer experiences: Shop, Spaces and Stories.

‘Shop’ was designed toward the idea that customers should never be too far away from product details and their shopping basket. ‘Spaces’ was inspired by the concept that interior designers and their customers want to see furniture products in restaurants, hotels, offices and bars. Using Adobe Commerce, the brand created its own version of **Pinterest **to showcase the online furniture in real world spaces. ‘Stories’ is a modern approach to traditional brand-focused blogs, driven by customer demand for rich content that puts products into context. The overall effect allowed Tom Dixon to create a best-in-class shopping experience that allowed his customers to immerse themselves in each family of products and material groups.

Product pages, optimised for selling furniture online, became the site’s real heroes, showcasing the unique nature of the products with strong brand photography. Visitors never lose sight of the product description or price when scrolling through the online store or moving from page to page. Customers can now create their own products online, including tables, upholstery and pendant systems. Small trade companies (designers and architects) can also download CAD files to use in their in-house designs. And by building a site suited to the needs of designers and architects, they exceeded the expectations of its consumers.

“Like Tom, we needed to combine the creative with the commercial, so we created an immersive experience where the customer is never too far away from the shopping basket,” says Mark Purdy, Head of Digital at Tom Dixon.

There are now four instances of the site covering the UK, Europe, United States and the rest of the world. Several of the e-commerce websites have dedicated price lists and inventory for each geography. Plans are in place for their global expansion to include Australia, Hong Kong, Canada, Sweden, Germany and France. Wherever they launch, Adobe Commerce provides a stable e-commerce solution for many years to come, so Tom Dixon can focus on creating new experiences to better sell furniture online, rather than maintaining and updating their infrastructure.

Sell furniture online with ease — day 1 conversion rate jumps by 31%

The new e-commerce store exceeded all expectations. Immediately after launch, there was a significant increase in site performance. Statistics showed that visitors were spending more time on the furniture e-commerce site and the bounce rate was steadily declining. The team was impressed to see that on day one, the online conversion rate increased by a staggering 31.5%.

Managing the website is significantly easier with Adobe Commerce. Adding new product pages, images and galleries used to be time-consuming and often required outside resources. Now it’s very simple and can be handled quickly by the small, in-house team.

“We chose Adobe Commerce to help us to deliver online experiences as unique as Tom Dixon’s products and to showcase our products online as they are in any of our extraordinary design spaces,” says Purdy.

Based on the success of the new online furniture store, the goal is to have the e-commerce website contributing 20% of total revenue over the next five years. This e-commerce strategy goes hand-in-hand with the opening of new retail shops in key cities, as Tom Dixon embarks on becoming a truly global brand. Powered by Adobe Commerce, Tom Dixon was able to create a digital furniture selling experience that embodies the designer’s love for combining the traditional and modern to create something extraordinary.

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