Why every major DIY retailer is investing in 3D room planning — and what separates the leaders from the rest.
Bathroom planning is the new front line in home improvement retail. It's a shift that's already reshaping how the world's most ambitious brands think about every step of the buying journey — from discovery, through configuration, all the way to checkout and beyond.
In this piece, we break down what we're seeing across our customer base and what it means for teams planning their next twelve months of visual commerce investment.
Why this matters now
Buyers expect interactive, photoreal, instant. The brands that meet that bar are pulling ahead on conversion, average order value and return rates — and the gap is widening every quarter.
What used to be a 'nice to have' is now table stakes for any category where the product is considered, configured, or expensive enough that confidence drives the click.
What the leaders are doing differently
Across hundreds of rollouts, a few patterns show up again and again: live pricing, AR handoff on the same surface as the configurator, and a tight feedback loop between merchandising and the 3D pipeline.
None of these are individually surprising. What's striking is how rarely they appear together — and how dramatically performance lifts when they do.
Key takeaways
Room planners are now the highest-intent surface on home improvement sites.
Integration with click-and-collect is the unlock for store traffic.
Leaders differentiate on speed and realism, not feature count.
Where to go from here
If you're early in your visual commerce journey, start with one hero product line and treat the configurator as a learning surface, not just a sales tool. Instrument everything.
If you're further along, the next frontier is AI — guided selling, automatic asset generation and intelligent recommendations layered on top of the experience you already have.
