By Steven Feldman
Los Angeles, Calif.–Emser Tile, a leading supplier of tile and natural stone, has relaunched its website to not only reflect the beauty of its products, but to provide an array of information in an easy-to-navigate format.
Eight months in the works, the new site offers many more user-friendly search features than the prior version and also includes a plethora of residential and commercial room scenes to inspire consumers as well as architects and designers.
In contrast to the old site, where the user basically had to know the specifics of what he or she was seeking, the revamped website allows users to search products by application, color, size and more. “We realized there was an opportunity to help visitors navigate through our 3,300 SKUs on the previous web-site; you basically needed to know a specific collection,” said Aris Gharapetian, marketing manager. “Now you can search by any attribute or specific product, like ceramic, metal, stone, glass, etc.”
Another feature of the revamped site is Design Made Easy, a tool that allows consumers and designers to coordinate products within groups, like traditional, multi-color, dark colors, etc. Once the user picks his or her preferred group, the task of coordinating field, tile, wall tile and decorative accents is facilitated.
“You can also navigate through our entire product portfolio by color,” Gharapetian said. “Architects have been asking for this feature for years.”
But what may turn out to be the most useful highlight of the new website is the customer resource section, which provides any and all information about Emser products, including technical data such as the MSDS sheet (chemical content) for each tile and sustainability attributes. “Some projects need to know this information before a product can be specified,” Gharapetian said. “Before, they would have to call us and we would send this information. It was time consuming on both ends. Now it is readily available on the site.”
Gharapetian said he has already received many positive comments despite having launched the site only three weeks ago. “We’ve been told that the site is among the best websites in the industry because customers can get all the information they need quickly, and it is easy to navigate. That was the entire purpose of creating this website.”
He noted that Emser has also been getting positive feedback on the My Memo feature. Here, an architect has the ability to select a product in which he is interested and can then drag it to his “memo.” He then can search for another product, like a listello, and drag it to the same place to see how the products may work together. “It’s interactive, kind of like your personal table. Today, that’s a differentiator for us.”
All this is supported by an extensive photo gallery, which displays Emser products in various applications–from kitchens and bathrooms to outdoor spaces and commercial settings—that link directly to the respective product’s information. “If you click on any product, the collection details are much more extensive than they were on our previous site,” Gharapetian said. “Before, we only had a product brochure and technical information; now you can get all specs, colors and details of a particular product.”
Another new feature for Emser is a dealer locator, where the consumer can type in their ZIP code, and would be provided a list of all Emser distribution centers and retailers within the specified geographical area will come up. This is important because Emser sells only to trade accounts such as retailers, architects, designers, and not to the end user.