Mio
The largest sofa company in Sweden. Now it´s possible to show them all.
The year was 1962 when a number of furniture dealers founded Mio – to gather their purchases to push down prices. In recent years, the company has made an extensive digital journey and today, Mio is the largest sofa company in Sweden, not least thanks to a successful e-commerce based on 3D visualizations.
"Showing our sofas in a million different combinations requires digitization."
Björn Lindblad, CEO Mio
Challenge and solution
Just before Midsummer of 2018, we started our collaboration. The aim was to use 3D visualizations online and give customers the opportunity to view all the available combinations of a sofa.
Another challenge: No cad models existing for any upholstered furniture. 3D scanning became the optimal solution for this to work at scale with precision – in conjunction with procedural generation of all sizes (please call for the full explanation).
The first launch came out very well and the customers instantly confirmed this, since online sales went through the roof.
The collaboration then intensified in connection with a major retake on the Mio e-commerce platform.
Our production challenge was to establish an elastic data model and deliver a database driven assortment overview online, where Mio could rationally retrieve all or parts of the assortment.
We also challenged Mio to find a new common language for describing any sofa – and synchronize this through the full range in the category. This way, it became much easier and efficient for Mio to build the product pages.
From Digital Twins to interior settings.
We handled the product images in 3D initially, while the Mio In house photo studio could continue producing inspiring photography.
Then we started to complement each other and collaborate intensely.
To be able to show the sofas in inspiring settings, we also started digitizing props from other parts of the assortment, which could then be used in environmental images produced in 3D.
In our automation ecosystem, we have full control over light sources, dynamic cameras, framing and the position of all the furniture in each room.
This way, we can create environmental images in 3D that are near identical to the difficult-to-build studio settings and show all the available combinations in an inspiring setting.
We have also started producing more challenging settings to build In house – for instance outdoor environments, bathrooms, and SPA venues.
Results
After four years of collaboration, Mio has more than ten times as much image material to work with for online sales. They now have a customer order-driven production with an (almost) unlimited selection of sofas.
As a customer, you can easily play with different combinations and also see how the sofa will turn out in a room.
Many times, customers order a sofa that has never been produced before. It has increased sales and been an important piece of the puzzle in Mio’s development into a multi billion (SEK) company.
We entered at an interesting stage for the company and have become a major part of their development online.
Today, innovative tools and processes enable Mio to oversee, manage and develop the range.
And that’s just the beginning.
