In your merchants' showrooms the customer chooses a floor holding a single tile, the counter staff work out the boxes on a calculator and, if they come up short, the top-up arrives from another batch in another shade. The problem is not the tile: it is how it is shown and how it is ordered.
Three boxes short. The tiler says so on the phone at half past ten, with half the living room laid in 20 × 120 wood-effect tiles and the last row unfinished. The merchant who sold those boxes orders three more from the factory, but that batch has sold out and the next one came from a different firing. Different shade and calibre. The customer does not want a lighter strip next to the terrace, the tiler does not want to carry on laying, and the merchant calls you looking for a solution.
Behind that call there is a counter. The merchant has twelve display panels for a collection of a hundred and eighty references, so the customer chose holding a loose tile and a room photo that looked nothing like their house. The counter staff worked out the metres from memory, without thinking that the long format and the brick bond need more cuts. Nobody mentioned the matching skirting or the grout colour: they were decided on site, with whatever was to hand.
Multiply that by your network: forty merchants, each with their own way of calculating and their own share of the display up to date. When you launch a new collection, it takes months for them to have the panels, and in the meantime they sell what they can show, which is often last season's or another manufacturer's. The samples you send cost money and end up in a drawer. And every short order sends back a batch problem you did not cause.
A 20 × 120 in your hand does not tell you how it looks in brick bond, with grey grout and a matching skirting, in a fourteen-metre living room. The customer needs to see it in their type of room and in the real format. If they cannot, they postpone the decision or choose what they already know, which is not always yours.
What it costs youThe sale is postponed with an “I will come back” and sometimes ends up at another merchant.
The counter staff divide the metres by the metres per box and round. They forget the waste, the fact that a long format and a brick bond create more offcuts, or the bathroom wall the customer measured in a hurry. The order comes up short or there is material left over, and neither leaves anyone happy.
What it costs youA top-up from another batch, in another shade and with another delivery charge.
Every season you launch new formats and finishes, but the merchant has the panels they have and changing one costs money, space and an afternoon's work. Your new collection exists in the catalogue and at the trade fair, but not at the counter where the customer decides which floor to take. The area sales rep explains it with the catalogue open and the merchant nods, but without a panel they do not offer it.
What it costs youThe merchant pushes what they can show, not what you want to sell.
Tiles, boards and sample sets sent to merchants, interior designers and customers who only wanted to compare two colours. Some arrive broken, some end up in a drawer and many never turn into an order. And even then, the sample shows the colour of the tile, but not the finished floor with its format, its grout and its laying pattern.
What it costs youMoney spent on samples and delivery that never becomes metres sold.
Matching skirting, grout colour, adhesive or wall tiles get left out of the order because nobody brings them up at the counter. Then the tiler buys whatever is closest. Every extra that does not appear at the moment of choosing is a metre or a bag that does not come out of your catalogue.
What it costs youSmaller orders than they could be and a worse final result.
Put in the figures for your network. This only counts top-ups caused by short orders; postponed sales, samples that never come back and display panels are separate.
€ a year
The values are an example: replace them with yours. The calculation is a simple multiplication and does not come from any study.
They pick bathroom, kitchen, living room or terrace and try the finish, the format, straight or brick bond laying and matt, polished or anti-slip. They add the wall, the grout and the skirting, rotate the room and look at it with a person for reference to understand the size of the tile.
Room, tile, format, laying pattern and grout in 3D
The customer enters the floor and wall metres, and the configurator works out the area with waste, the boxes based on the metres per box, the skirting, the grout and the approximate bags of adhesive. In your development, the waste and the metres per box are yours, reference by reference.
Calculation of metres, waste, boxes and materials
The whole collection can be tried in 3D on the merchant's screen or on the customer's phone, which they open with a QR code with nothing to install. The merchant does not need new panels to sell what is new, and each one can have their own dealer area with their margin and their brand.
The full collection in 3D and opened on a phone with a QR code
Wood-effect against cement or terrazzo, grey grout against anthracite: up to three versions of the same room side by side, with the differences highlighted. The customer reaches the physical sample knowing which one they want to see, and the one you send is the one with a chance of ending in an order.
Comparison of up to 3 options
The flow asks about the matching skirting, the grout colour and the laying pattern, and the labels on the 3D point out each material. The factory order sheet comes out with every reference and its quantity: tile, wall covering, skirting and grout. The merchant does not have to remember to offer it.
Labels on the 3D and an order sheet with referencesPick a living room, set the wood-effect tile to 20 × 120 in brick bond with grey grout and open the summary to see the boxes, the waste and the adhesive.
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.
Send us a range with its formats, finishes and metres per box: in a 20-minute demo you will see how it would look and what it would take for your network to sell with it.
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 configurator is developed with your ranges, formats, finishes, special pieces and metres per box. If a collection has 180 references, all 180 are loaded, and when you launch a new season it is added without changing panels in any merchant. What the demo shows with six generic finishes is, in yours, your own tiles with their name and their reference.
It takes the floor and wall metres the customer enters, applies the waste and divides by the metres per box, rounding up. The demo uses 10% waste and 1.44 m² per box as an example; in your development your own rules per format are used. It also gives the skirting, the grout and an estimate of the bags of adhesive.
It does not change how a firing comes out, but it tackles a frequent cause of the problem: the short order that forces a top-up weeks later. If the boxes are worked out properly from the start and the order goes out complete, it is far easier for everything to come from the same batch. The order sheet records metres, waste and boxes in case what was ordered needs checking.
For a network of merchants, the starting point is this: 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. From there, what moves the figure is the collections and rooms you load, your calculation rules per format and whether each merchant will have their own price list or you want it linked to your ERP. We review your catalogue before closing anything and tell you what is in and what is out.
Yes, as part of the bespoke development: each merchant has their own login, with their margin and their logo, and the contacts coming from their area are assigned to them. The customer sees the configurator of the merchant they buy from, with your collections inside, and the merchant sells your product without having to display all of it.
Yes. From the merchant's screen they open it on their phone with a QR code, with no app to install, and take their configured floor away to show their partner or the tiler. They can also save an image or the PDF with the configuration and the calculated quantities.
See all the bathroom configurators → · See all the 3D configurators by sector →
Tray with screen, freestanding or built-in bath
See page →Cut to the centimetre, texture and colour
See page →Sliding, fixed, corner or hinged
See page →Square metres of floor and wall, waste, square metres per box and rounding up: the sum step by step, what to decide before ordering and the mistakes behind a short order.
Read the guide (in Spanish) →Plank by plank · herringbone and chevron · boxes with wastage
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