Bensons for Beds has said that it used technology from Akeneo to facilitate a revamp of product information on its website.

The furniture retailer explained that with customers on average only purchasing new beds or mattresses every seven to eight years, it realised it needed to “re-educate” its customers on product attributes, benefits, and how new sleep technologies have evolved since their last purchase.

The new product experience technology also aimed to bridge the gap between digital and physical channels so that customers could access information through staff in-store, who also use the website as a central product information reference point.

Bensons for Beds' products are curated into Good/Better/Best subsets with the new technology enabling different product experiences depending on the product type to ensure higher price point items include all the information required to support a sale.

The company said that control fields allow the retailer to "slice and dice" information based on what is relevant to the audience depending on which channel they are seeing it, while metadata increases "visibility and onsite product search."

Additionally, the retailer's merchandising team now have the power to create new product variations and options without reliance on the IT team.

The retailer said that the technology unified multiple data points in a bid to establish “cohesive and information-rich” product experiences across its omnichannel services.

“It’s our job to find the best mattress for our customers and, in terms of channel, we try and get as many of our customers in-store as possible,” said Graham Wilson, director of digital and omnichannel, Bensons for Beds. “The Bensons For Beds website is about research and consideration and we need to provide that bible of information to help customers narrow down products to help with their decision-making process.”

Wilson said that having a more consistent experience between channels has been "incredibly powerful" and has helped the business create attachment opportunities, which in turn helps drive its average order value (AOV).

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