Industry West Review: Elevated Furniture for Every Project
Glory-Anna Oshafi
The Industry West brand offers a curated collection of stylish furniture pieces showcased on their visually appealing Shopify platform.
The website’s clean design and well-organized product categories make it easy for customers to browse and find the perfect piece for their home. The high-quality product images also contribute to a positive shopping experience.
Additionally, the brand frequently features promotions and discounts to make its products more affordable to its target audience. The website has more to offer, which we’ll cover in subsequent sections of our Industry West review.
Comprehensive Features Analysis
This section will explore the various elements that define the Industry West (IW) website shopping experience.
Product Descriptions and Collections 8/10
Effective product descriptions provide essential details about the product and engage customers to make them confident about their purchase decisions. Let’s evaluate the effectiveness of IW’s product descriptions using the following metrics:
- Clarity and Descriptiveness
The descriptions of IW’s products are clear and concise. For example, see the description of the Compass Counter and Bar Stool below.
If you’re looking for a bar stool that matches the sophisticated design of your living space, seeing the word “sophisticated” in the description would immediately make you think, “Aha! This is the one.” So, it makes you confident in the purchase.
Additionally, the descriptions are consistent across different products. They hint at the kind of interior the designs will fit in. Another example to back this claim is the Cane Bed. See the image below.
The first line of the highlights hints at the design fitting the mid-century contemporary aesthetics. It makes decision-making easier for people who know what they want.
The description highlights the design’s key features in bullet points to make it easy for customers to catch. It also has collapsible sections for the product specifications and warranty. This keeps the descriptions organized and clean.
The product page also features a tear sheet hyperlink for each product. This provides a bird’s-eye view of the key information of the product.
- SEO vs. Readability
IW’s product descriptions are not stuffed with keywords. There’s hardly any high-competition keyword in the descriptions.
For example, the Scandinavian-inspired Compass Counter and Bar Stool did not appear in search results for “Scandinavian bar stool” or even “Scandinavian counter stool.”
While the descriptions maintain a natural, engaging, and easy-to-read flow, it’s crucial to incorporate relevant keywords to optimize the product page for search engines. This will make the brand’s unique designs more visible to potential customers.
- Creativity and Branding
IW maintains a consistent voice across its product pages. The product images are also similar, contributing to a unified look.
The products also have unique names that explain the design inspiration. An example is the Cane Bed made with cane and the Compass stool inspired by compasses.
We also applaud the creativity in the product highlights. It paints a picture and evokes emotions that customers tag with the product. See how they described the Verona Double Vanity as “an element of tranquility for your bathroom.”
This conveys a calming effect that customers may always associate with the product.
- Organization of Collections
The organization of IW’s product deserves applause. The furniture items are categorized based on their function and specific location. For example, living room furniture and interior items are grouped under Living. The same goes for dining and so on. See the image below.
Then, they throw in other essential categorizations like “New Arrivals” to ensure customers never miss a new design. Some products are categorized under “Sale” and different product sets are grouped under “Collections.”
Additionally, there’s a special category labeled “Staff Picks” which lists all the staff’s favorite products. Staff Picks is an effective way of recommending products to customers. It’s saying, “Our staff like it. Maybe you will, too.” This can encourage purchase.
Finally, when you hover over a menu item, you’ll find a different categorization of products that makes shopping easier.
Overall, the categories are intuitive and straightforward, making looking for a product frictionless.
- Visuals
IW features high-quality images on its product pages. Each product page has a mini gallery that shows the products in different angles and shots to help viewers see the product’s details.
The product images can only be better by including real-life images of the product in their corresponding living space. This will be even better when the real-life photos come from satisfied customers. It’ll foster trust and convince customers that they’ll be satisfied with the purchase.
User Experience 9/10
The user experience of IW’s website gets a solid nine because of its intuitiveness and ease of navigation. The clean layout of the website also impacts the user experience. We love the neutral background because it’s not distracting. It blends perfectly with the product images to make them attractive to customers.
Another feature that improves the user experience is its responsive design, which makes browsing enjoyable on any screen size. Also, just by the upper right-hand side of the website, you’ll find a search bar.
Rather than going through the categories, visitors can use the search function to find IW’s products quickly. See the search results for “lounge chair” below:
Lastly, the site maintains a fast loading speed regardless of the numerous high-quality images. Oh, and we tried to checkout, and the process was smooth. They offer different secure payment methods, including Shop Pay for installments.
We love how they broke the checkout process into different stages to avoid the overwhelming feeling of having too many form fields to fill. From the product page to fill in your personal information, shipping details, and finally, payment, customers can complete a purchase in quick, successive steps.
Customer Service and FAQ Page 7/10
Each product page features a phone number for customers to call for inquiries.
However, the number also hyperlinks to the contact page, where they list other means of contact, including chat and email.
When you scroll down, you’ll find a FAQ section with hyperlinks to different FAQ categories.
There’s no dedicated FAQ page. But collapsing it into the contact page works. Meanwhile, you can also access the contact page from the website’s footer.
Having the phone number and contact page hyperlink on the product page is commendable. Customers can easily call on the spot for any query they have and get informed to make the purchase decision.
But we have some reservations about their chatbot. It’s just a window to talk to a live agent. So, customers cannot engage with the chatbot unless they’re available.
These days, there are AI-powered chatbots that provide human-like responses to customers 24/7. So, while we can give IW an A for effort in their customer service, they must incorporate intelligent chatbots to excel more in that aspect.
Return and Shipping Policies 8/10
From the website’s footer, there are menu items to access the returns and shipping policies pages.
The shipping footer item opens up to the shipping FAQ page. This provides comprehensive details for various shipping-related queries all in one place. However, this can feel overwhelming for customers expecting a brief overview or summary of the return policy.
The returns footer item, however, opens up to the returns policy page. IW can improve the presentation of its returns policy.
The fonts are small, and finding information quickly from the chunk of text can be challenging.
Promotions and Discounts 8/10
IW organizes items on sale into a category and offers up to 25% off. But regardless of how you’re browsing items on the website, those on sale always come with the “Sale” label. Check the image below:
Also, they use banner messages to advertise ongoing promotions.
This ensures they’re visible to customers and creates a perception of cost savings for them.
Special Features and Innovations 7/10
One feature of the IW brand that influences its popularity is its Trade Program.
It’s like an affiliate program for designers in specific industries, where they get IW’s products at discounts (that increase with order volume), early insights into new product releases, and other perks. They do an excellent job of subtly advertising this program throughout the website.
Strengths Showcase
The following are some of the strengths of IW’s Shopify store:
- Sophisticated Yet Simple Design Aesthetic
Landing on the IW website makes you feel rich. Although the design is simple, it presents some depth of sophistication that makes you feel like it’s a furniture brand for the elite.
But not in a way that makes you want to go away if you’re on a tight budget; rather, it absorbs you until you find yourself browsing through collections. Fortunately, they have flexible payment options and discounts to ensure you get a furniture piece you like regardless of your budget.
- User-Friendly Navigation
Another appeal of IW’s website is the intuitive and easy navigation across the website. The products are sorted into intuitive categories. Also, hyperlinks are distinguished by underlined texts, which makes them easily detectable.
We cannot stress the effectiveness of the product presentations. From high-quality images to highlights, collapsible sections, and tear sheets, customers get the information they need to make informed decisions—all from the product page.
Growth Opportunities for Industry West
Industry West must divert some attention to the following areas to beat the competition, make more sales, and improve customer satisfaction.
- Reviews
The website lacks a convincing amount of reviews. Positive reviews act as social proof. It tells new customers that others have had good experiences with the products. Also, the brand can get genuine feedback through reviews and position itself as customer-centric by fixing negative reviews.
- SEO
IW must invest in keyword research and other effective SEO tactics to rank highly in search engines and increase the visibility of its unique furniture designs. They can also include a blog section on the website for more opportunities to input relevant keywords.
- Customer Support
Finally, efficient customer support is vital for customer satisfaction. Currently, IW has four means of answering customer queries, but they’re inefficient. For example, the FAQ page doesn’t cover an extensive range of topics; chats, calls, and emails are limited to working hours.
The site already has exceptional features. So, it can easily work well with intelligent chatbot solutions like Juphy to improve customer service. IW should look into making the integration happen.
Final Rating
Rating Breakdown
- Product Descriptions and Collection: 8/10
- User Experience: 9/10
- Customer Service and FAQ Page: 7/10
- Return and Shipping Policies: 8/10
- Promotions and Discounts: 8/10
- Special Features and Innovations: 7/10
Overall Rating—8/10
Industry West can become one of the top furniture and interior brands in the US, even worldwide. The brand aesthetic is calmly captivating, navigation is easy, and the promotions/flexible payment options provide a cost-effective way for those on a tight budget to get their desired furniture.
However, they can make more sales if they invest in SEO to increase their visibility. Also, they can significantly improve customer service by handing over the reins to Juphy.
What Can Juphy Do for Your Shopify Store?
Juphy AI is a chatbot powered by GPT-4 technology that can handle more complex questions and prompts compared to its predecessors. Featuring the ‘Built for Shopify’ badge, it allows for direct access and management right from the Shopify dashboard. Let’s see how that can work in your favor.
- Streamline Customer Support
Juphy provides human-like responses to customer queries. Plus, it’s available 24/7, so there are no more work-hour limitations to customer service. It gives customers all the information they need to make informed decisions.
For example, instead of going through the shipping FAQ page to get a particular question, customers can ask Juphy the question and get a straightforward response in seconds. This speed of providing answers improves customer satisfaction.
- Boost Sales
Juphy can make searching for products easy. Customers can ask the chatbot for specific designs, and it’ll provide multiple recommendations based on the prompt. It also can recommend products based on customer behavior and preferences.
This also presents an opportunity for upselling and cross-selling. For example, Juphy can recommend the Compass Cane Armchair to a customer shopping for their Cane Bed. If these sound good to you, here’s a link to integrate Juphy into your Shopify store. It’s quick and easy.