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3Flat: Home improvements made easy

A room in a box. Well, maybe not one box, maybe several. But that's the idea behind 3Flat, a new company owned by the Lowe's home-improvement chain that has decided to cater to the light remodeling needs of urban dwellers who are short on space and time. They probably don't have cars either.

Tim Jackson, vice president of e-commerce ventures for Lowe's, talked about the company's idea of packing up and shipping soup-to-nuts "home improvement solutions," as the company calls the new shopping website, which currently operates only in the Chicago area:

Q: What's the idea behind 3Flat.com?

A: We're offering entire room solutions online. The consumer can order what they need for a bathroom remodel or a kitchen update with everything, even the wall paint, included. The offerings are very specific, and they've been curated by designers to aim specifically at what urban consumers might need. We will ship all at once, to be delivered all at the same time.

Q: Why does Lowe's think this is something that's needed?

A: We think today's consumers are looking for a home improvement experience that's a lot more than the one they currently get. We came up with the idea of introducing something that provides them with support throughout the entire project, making it seamless. We decided to introduce it to the urban customer — they have unique home improvement challenges, such as smaller spaces and limited mobility.

They still have the aspiration to control and tailor their experience. We offer a room for a basic price — our laundry closet is designed to fit into an existing, standard 6-foot closet space, for example. It offers a stacking washer and dryer, a laundry sorter, pull-out drying rack, a folding table and storage shelf. The package as shown costs $2,395. But they can customize it, with different shelving and other options, and even add things like hangers. Or they can buy just pieces of it.

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Q: Why target urban consumers?

A: They're probably living in condos or multi-unit buildings or smaller homes with limited space. And the all-in-one delivery is related to that too. For example, in many suburbs, folks might have a garage and a much bigger property, so if one piece of the project gets delivered before the rest, it might not be such a big deal for them to store it. But in Chicago, they might have 1,200 square feet.

And they also might not have a car. These are really busy folks, and they don't have a lot of time in the evening to shuttle projects around. We bring the entire thing over your threshold all at once.

I'm a perfect example. I live on the 26th floor. And I don't have a lot of time to take off work to wait for vanities or mirrors to be delivered. It might be one thing to schedule a delivery with the doorman or arrange with my employer for me to be there, but if you have to be there every day as pieces and parts trickle in, it can impact your lifestyle.

Q: So you get the whole thing delivered. What about installation?

A: You can do it yourself. 3Flat.com will even sell you the tools to do it. Or you can hire a contractor. Currently we're partnering with Angie's List to help them find recommended contractors. We're also working on other means for choosing contractors that we're not quite ready to announce yet.

Q: Are there plans to expand beyond Chicago?

A: We figured Chicago would be a great place to figure out the challenges (of this kind of program) by studying a diverse set of urban customers. Right now, we can only deliver in the Chicago area. Obviously, we're keeping our options open, but we don't have any plans to expand it elsewhere at this point.


Twitter @maryumberger


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