How Tuff Shed Used Product Visualization to Increase Sales by $7.6m

How Tuff Shed Used Product Visualization to Increase Sales by $7.6m
==============================================================

This is the story of how one manufacturing company–Tuff Shed–achieved a $7.6m bump in sales by
introducing product visualization. It was a fantastic outcome, but not the only one. The company also
achieved:

• 6% boost in average sales price
• $2.9 million saved in reduced job site errors
• $1.1 million material cost savings
• 500,000 fewer sales phone calls

Follow on to find out why product visualization was such a gamechanger for Tuff Shed and judge for
yourself whether product visualization is something worth exploring in your own business. If you’re a
manufacturer of complex configurable products, the answer will likely be a resounding: “yes.”

What Is Tuff Shed? And Why Should I Care?

Tuff Shed, founded in 1981, is a company out of Denver, Colorado, that sells and fabricates-to-order
garden sheds, garages, and other custom structures.

They operate over 150 stores and sell through 2,000 Home Depot locations in the United States. They
also sell directly to consumers through their website (TuffShed.com) and the Home Depot website
(homedepot.com).

To give you an indication of scale, Tuff Shed employs around 1,500 people and (according to reports)
generates revenue of circa $350m.

Why should you care? Because Tuff Shed is a perfect model of digital transformation in action:

• It’s a company that sells complex configurable products
• It has transitioned from a high-touch sales model to a digital-first strategy
• It has dramatically increased profits and future-proofed the company.

They’ve also managed to strike up a fascinating B2B2C business model with Home Depot that other
manufacturers might wish to emulate.

What Is Product Visualization (in Tuff Shed’s Case?)

Product visualization is a vague term covering any technology that visually communicates products to
customers (generally in photorealistic renderings.)

The ability to show customers what a custom product will look like before they commit to a purchase is
an important one–it aids decision-making and increases customer satisfaction (everything is agreed upon
from the outset–no nasty surprises.)

But product visualization is only one part of the engineer-to-order equation. Manufacturers need to
integrate immersive product visualization technology into their sales, engineering, and manufacturing
workflows to achieve the best ROI. Tuff Shed was able to accomplish this by investing in a visual CPQ
solution.

Why Is CPQ Central to This Story?

Product visualization is most impactful when it’s used as part of a CPQ solution.

Traditional CPQ Software Works Like This...

CPQ (configure price quote) is software that automates much of the sales process for companies that
sell configurable products. Manufacturers program product and pricing rules into the back-end of the
CPQ, and these rules dictate how products can and should be assembled.

Instead of sifting through hundreds (or even millions) of product options when configuring products for
buyers, all sales reps need to do is enter certain customer information into the configurator. The CPQ
then outputs a product and price optimized for that use case.

Benefits of CPQ include accelerated sales cycles, fewer errors, less back and forth between sales,
engineering, and the shop floor, and faster ramping of new sales hires.

Visual CPQ Uses a 3D Product Visualizer and Product Renderings

Visual CPQ is a little bit different than the more traditional type of CPQ software outlined above. Firstly,
visual CPQ can be used by sales reps or end-customers, and, secondly, products are configured by
interacting with a 3D product visualizer rather than text.

A 3D product visualizer (also known as a visual product configurator) is a graphical interface that
displays interactive 3D product renderings. Users can zoom in and out, move products around, and drag
and drop to change anything from materials to dimensions, colors, and parts—the result: a buying
experience that’s highly immersive and user-friendly.

How Did Tuff Shed Use 3D Product Visualization to Its Advantage?

Tuff Shed Before Product Visualization

Tuff Shed sells a wide range of products with thousands of options. Each has its own set of rules and
dependencies. Selling garages and other modular buildings mean abiding by strict building codes that
regulate all aspects of design. Technical knowledge requirements made finding and training sales reps
difficult and introduced complexity and risk of error at every stage.

Before product visualization, sales reps worked alongside customers to configure products manually,
talking them through the various options before sending sketches over to engineering for approval. The
problem was that sales reps configured products that weren’t viable from an engineering perspective or
sent napkin sketches that engineers didn’t understand (cue endless back and forth.)

As part of a broader digital transformation process, Tuff Shed decided to codify all of the product and
pricing rules that had lived in sales reps’ heads, automate their manual sales process, and provide a more
interactive buying experience across a range of channels. Product visualization was the key.

Tuff Shed After Product Visualization

Tuff Shed used Epicor CPQ to create an interactive 3D product configurator. With the configurator, users
can scroll through every product and option in the catalog until the perfect selection happens.

Users can spin their structure round, drag and drop windows and doors, and even drag objects like
lawnmowers into the space to make sure they’ve got enough room in their shed for what they need to
store. All the while, the CPQ is recalculating and displaying prices in real-time, giving customers all the
information they need to make a snap purchase decision.

Tuff Shed embedded their 3D configurator into their eCommerce store for any visitor to use. Prospects
carrying out research and weighing up their options can educate themselves about the Tuff Shed range
and often end up selling to themselves in the process.

What’s unique about Tuff Shed’s approach is that they’ve broadened access to their configurator beyond
sales reps and their website. They’ve enabled Home Depot customers to use their configurator by
positioning tablets, pre-loaded with the Tuff Shed configurator, into Home Depot stores.

Through their relationship with Home Depot, Tuff Shed has captured a valuable customer segment that
usually shops in physical stores. And have benefited from Home Depot’s enormous reach and the
credibility of partnering with one of the world’s best-known brands.

In Summary

So, let’s conclude by answering the question posed in the title of this article: How did Tuff Shed increase
sales by $7.6m (along with all the other benefits) by leveraging product visualization? It was a
constellation of factors.

With product visualization:

• Configuring products is faster and easier for sales reps
• More customers can self-serve
• The eCommerce experience is richer and easier-to-navigate
• Customers gain a deeper understanding of products and options, which aids decision-making
• Product and pricing rules prevent errors and needless back and forth