The shop has three of your sofas on display and the fabric swatch book in a drawer. The customer cannot picture terracotta on a 2.60 metre chaise, and has no idea whether it will fit in their living room, and the order reaches the factory with a note scribbled on it: “right-hand chaise”. Seen from where?
It is ten o'clock and in production there is an order nobody dares pass to the workshop. It comes from a furniture shop on the coast: sofa with chaise longue, sage green fabric, wooden legs, medium firmness. It is written on the shop's form, with the fabric reference copied from the swatch book and, in the margin, “right-hand chaise”. Whoever is holding it hesitates: right as you look at the sofa, or right as you sit on it? They call the shop, but the salesperson who took it is off until Thursday.
Meanwhile, in another shop, a couple have been standing in front of your swatch book for half an hour. They like the chaise model on display in pearl grey, but they want it in terracotta and do not dare: on the small swatch it looks too bold for a whole sofa. On top of that, they do not know whether a 1.80 metre chaise will leave room to get to the terrace. They leave with a catalogue and two fabric samples in a bag, and the salesperson knows that sale has just moved further away.
The shop can only display three or four sofas; your catalogue has four shapes, three arm types, two seat depths, dozens of fabrics, three firmness levels, motorised recliners and three types of leg. Almost everything you make is sold without ever having been seen made up. And when the sofa arrives home with the chaise on the wrong side, or the fabric was not what they pictured, the complaint comes back to your factory, even though the order was taken somewhere else.
A swatch in your hand and a 2.60 metre sofa with a chaise, cushions and legs are two very different things. Faced with the doubt, the customer falls back on grey or beige, or goes home to think about it with the samples in their bag. The fabric that excited them stays in the swatch book.
What it costs youSales put off and sofas in the safest colour, not the one they wanted.
With a chaise longue, a corner unit or an extra-deep seat, the sofa takes up far more than it appears to in a shop with high ceilings and wide aisles. The customer does not know whether it will leave room to get to the terrace or whether it will cover the radiator, and without that certainty they do not sign. Or they sign and find out on delivery day that it does not fit.
What it costs youOrders that never close or sofas that come back because they will not go in.
The side of the chaise, the seat depth, the arm type, the fabric, the firmness and the legs travel from the shop to the factory on a form filled in by hand. An ambiguous box or a fabric reference copied wrong is discovered when the sofa has already been upholstered. And a made-to-order sofa made wrong cannot be sold to anyone else.
What it costs youSofas reupholstered and a five or six-week lead time starting again.
Every furniture shop has room for a handful of your sofas, in one fabric and one configuration. The rest of the range only exists in the catalogue. The customer looking for a corner unit with a slim arm does not see it and assumes you do not make it. The salesperson cannot show what they do not have made up.
What it costs youA good part of what you make is never shown at all.
Motorised recliner, removable covers, stain treatment, choice of firmness: these are options that raise the value of the sofa, but the salesperson explains them verbally and with a price list on paper. If the customer cannot see them or know their price there and then, they do not add them. And the salesperson, in a hurry, sometimes does not even mention them.
What it costs youSofas sold simpler than what the customer was willing to buy.
A made-to-order sofa ordered wrong is paid for in full: fabric, workshop hours and carriage. Try it with your own figures for a year.
€ a year
The values are an example: replace them with yours. The calculation is a simple multiplication and does not come from any study.
The customer goes from sage green to terracotta, white bouclé or graphite and sees the complete sofa straight away, with its cushions and its legs. With augmented reality on their phone they place it in their own living room, next to their furniture and in their light. They decide without taking samples home.
Fabrics in 3D and augmented reality
The dimensions are readable over the 3D, 260 by 92 centimetres and a 180 cm chaise in the example configuration, and a person's silhouette beside the sofa gives the scale. With augmented reality they check whether it leaves room to get to the terrace. The question of whether it fits is settled in the shop, not on delivery day.
Dimensions over the 3D and a person for scale
The order sheet comes out with the frame and the side of the chaise, the fabric with its reference and whether the covers are removable, the filling according to the firmness, the legs and the cushions with their quantities. What the shop configures while looking at the sofa is what reaches your workshop, with no handwritten forms.
Factory order sheet
Two-seater, three-seater, chaise or corner unit, with a straight, slim or armless design and standard or extra-deep seat: the salesperson shows any combination on screen and puts three proposals side by side, with their differences in view. Each shop works in its own area, with its margin and its logo.
Comparing versions and an area for shops
Motorised recliner, removable covers, stain treatment and firmness appear in the configurator with their indicative price, calculated from your price list. The customer switches them on and sees what changes; the salesperson does not have to remember to mention them or dig the price list out of a drawer.
Indicative price with extrasChoose “With chaise longue”, change the side to “Left” and the fabric to terracotta, and see how the order sheet records it.
An open demo, with no registration, with example products and prices. It is designed for manufacturers, dealers and installers: private customers are welcome to try it, but we do not sell the product.
With models and fabrics like yours, you will see how a shop would sell the whole range without having it on display.
Most projects for manufacturers fall between €14,500 and €35,000, depending on the catalogue, the manufacturing rules and the integrations. Maintenance and hosting from €190 a month. We start from a base that already works: you are not paying for development from scratch.
Would you rather talk it through? Call 662 061 421 or write to grup3d@grup3d.es.
There are more short answers in frequently asked questions about 3D configurators and who we are in 3D configurator company.
Yes. The seven fabrics in the demo are only samples; yours will carry your collections with their colours and your rules: which fabrics each model takes, which have removable covers and what supplement each fabric group carries. That way no shop can order a fabric on a model that does not take it.
The chaise is chosen in 3D, looking at the sofa: left or right is understood immediately because the customer sees where it sits. That choice goes straight onto the order sheet, with the frame and its side written down, so at the factory there is no note to interpret and no call to the shop to confirm.
With a sofa what matters most is the fabrics: how many collections and price groups there are and which models each one takes. Then the number of shapes and whether you want an area for shops or a link to your ERP. A starting figure: developments start from €6,500 for a visual configurator of one product family; most projects for manufacturers fall between €14,500 and €35,000, depending on the catalogue, the rules and the integrations, plus maintenance from €190 a month. With your collection and your price list in front of us, we give you a fixed price, always in writing.
Yes. The PDF the customer takes away comes out with the shop's name and logo, and the price with their margin on your price list. Underneath, they all sell with the same manufacturing rules, so none of them can order a combination you do not make. And whoever configures a sofa on your website is assigned to the shop for their area.
Yes. The shop gives them a QR code; at home they scan it with their phone, with no app to download, and in augmented reality they see the sofa at real size among their furniture. They check the size and the fabric at their own pace and come back with the decision made, or ask for a price without going into the shop again.
They are explained with labels over the 3D and appear as options with their price: the customer chooses firm, medium or soft and switches on the motorised recliner knowing what it adds. The order sheet records the filling according to the firmness and the mechanism, so the workshop does not have to ask.
See all the furniture configurators → · See all the 3D configurators by sector →
Roller, roman, wave or day-and-night
See page →Galley, L-shaped or with an island
See page →Hinged, sliding or walk-in
See page →Inner layers, firmness shown on a person, ottoman base and headboard
See page →A guide to ordering a made-to-measure modular sofa: how to measure the living room, how to decide which side the chaise goes on, which fabric and firmness to choose and the mistakes you pay for.
Read the guide (in Spanish) →Storage bed base, headboard and 24 fabrics · bedside tables with lamps · in their own bedroom
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