How Homebase Improved Product Visualisation and Discovery Using Hullabalook Technology

We recently launched a new shopping experience with Homebase. The experience is designed to make browsing, visualising and buying paint easier, quicker and more inspiring. 

Traditional paint buying journeys are often time consuming and uninspiring for shoppers - it is really difficult to compare and imagine a colour on a paint tin in a real space. There are typically thousands of products, each with multiple size and finish combinations so the choice is overwhelming and confusing especially for those less familiar with paint terminology.

Homebase wants to ensure their site is easy to use, and that it’s easy for shoppers to choose the right products for their project. They began working with us because they wanted to make the paint discovery and decision making journey much easier for their customers. They deployed Hullabalook's AI technology on-site, and launched the Paint Colour Finder. 

Overcoming data challenges

With thousands of paint products to choose from, product discovery can be overwhelming. Homebase knew that their site needed a visual paint-focused shopping experience, but didn’t have the technology to execute their vision. 

Hullabalook are experts in transforming complicated product data into next-gen shopping experiences - so we were up for the challenge.

Re-imagining ecommerce pages 

We started by asking Homebase a simple question: what do people care about most when they are buying paint? 

The answer, of course, is colour. 

We built an experience with this need in mind. Traditional paint ecommerce pages lack the necessary tools for easy discovery and visualisation. Shoppers need to click on a lot of filters and open multiple pages in order to visualise and compare paint shades.

Hullabalook-powered ecommerce pages make this discovery and visualisation journey easy. We reduce clicks by streamlining navigation and surfacing more paint products on a single page. 

Let’s delve deeper into some of the features that make this experience so special.

Already piqued your interest? Learn more about Hullabalook's platform: book a demo today.

Discovering colour and enabling visualisation

Instead of relying on binary filters to discover colour, Hullabalook’s Colour AI enables the ability to shop by colour group and shade. Our technology takes the exact HEX code of each paint product and plots it within the colour band, so shoppers can be more specific with their choices. When buying paint there’s quite a big difference between navy and bright blue so this experience needed greater colour specificity than just a “blue” filter.

Traditional paint ecommerce pages often display a picture of a paint can - this makes it really hard to visualise how the colour will look on your walls, and how shades compare. Hullabalook solves this problem. Our technology renders any selected shade automatically onto the walls of a lifestyle image. Shoppers can add multiple colours, and visualise them side by side - just like they would on their walls at home.

Eliminating the need for expensive product photography

Lifestyle imagery aids visualisation, but is very expensive and time consuming to produce. Hullabalook eliminates these costs by enabling endless combinations, which are instantly generated. Shoppers can choose whichever room scene matches their decorating project - our technology will automatically render their chosen shades onto the walls and woodwork.   

Upgraded filtering

Shoppers can filter by brand, paint type and colour name to ensure they purchase the right colour - we’ve even added helpful hints to signpost the characteristics of each paint type. This highlights the benefits of specialists paints, so that shoppers always buy the right product for their project. 

When shoppers choose their favourite shades, they can refine their choices by size and finish - this provides a seamless shopping experience.

Improving cross-sell capabilities 

Our AI recommendations engine, which we implemented within the ‘goes well with’ section,  instantly generates contrasting, complementary and woodwork paints based on the colour and paint brand the shopper has chosen. 

We are helping shoppers who may struggle with design choices (i.e understanding which colours work together), to make the right purchasing decisions. This also makes cross-selling easy; shoppers don’t need to click through to multiple pages to complete their purchase because we’ve done all the hard work for them!

Merchandising brands or best-sellers 

Homebase wanted to inspire shoppers with colour schemes and ideas, while also merchandising specific paint brands or shades. This section of the app is completely customisable; Homebase can update it whenever they want according to seasons or trends etc.

Each of these features work together to create a paint buying experience that is inspirational, super smart and simple to navigate. We hope you agree!

Do you have a data challenge for us? Or would you like to learn more about our technology? Get in touch with us today.