Online retailers in the home department must work harder than other retailers to get sales, since this is an area that consumers want to be able to touch and feel the item before purchasing. Compare the numbers to books, for which more than half of total sales take place online, while online home improvement retailers see only 5.7% of total sales. According to Christian Friedland, the president of Improvement Direct Inc, there are two main reasons, that consumers want to be able to feel, touch and see the products and that they are worried about getting heavier items delivered, items that require signatures.

To address the desire to touch and feel items, Improvement Direct has created an in-house photo studio that takes images of products from several angles, and then creates Flash-based images that allow site visitors to spin an item to get a complete view of it. Where the e-retailer has created these 360-degree views of products, conversion rates increased by 20%, Friedland said.