What's New From Revel Woods

No talk of the future should ever begin without a look back.

Revel Woods was started by a small team of hardwood flooring industry experts who knew the future of hardwood included a serious online presence, but the present online experience was (how do we say this politely?) bad: Too many options, too little expertise, too little quality curation, minimal accountability, the list of problems went on and on. Shopping for such an important and long term part of your home – the place you sleep, the place you raise your children and pets – felt like a virtual used car lot.

Our approach was “Do it better, or don’t bother.”

We used our years of experience to source only from factories we knew, trusted, and could hold accountable if there was ever an issue. We then paired that premium offering with a proprietary algorithm that allowed customers to shop only the products that worked for their climate, subfloor, lifestyle, and others. It was designed to truly be the boutique showroom experience from the comfort of whatever browser connected device the customer preferred.

It was truly the first ever eCommerce platform built with the specifically for hardwood flooring.

What we launched with might not have been perfect, but we were pretty damn proud of it. There was nobody else in the industry doing anything like it (which is still true as of this writing) and we could have rode that wave of innovation until everyone else caught on. That, however, is just not how we work.

We learned a ton from our first year post-launch, and we didn’t need anyone to motivate us. We thought we could do it better, so we were going to do it better.

Most of our focus has been on revamping our backend, making sure we can handle all of our orders in the most efficient way possible, and other things you probably don’t care about as long as it goes smoothly. But we have also worked hard on redesigning our front end to make your life that much nicer.

Here is a peek at what we’ve been working on: 

The New Revel Woods

The new site is brighter, cleaner, and more colorful, but we didn’t just update the look. Without getting too technical, much of the functionality of the original site was housed other places, and we relied on API calls to bring that information to you. Just about everything has been integrated into our new platform, so the entire site runs much more smoothly and more reliably.

The Revel Wood Selector

Perhaps the single most important piece of our entire site, the quiz – now named the Revel Wood Selector – has been rethought to be even easier, faster, and more efficient. One much requested change:

Questions that are considered subjective (meaning will not actually affect the performance of the floor, and are more personal style choices) now have a big “Show All” button. Previously we had that option, but it was this tiny little “No Preference” button that hid at the bottom of the box and was missed by virtually everyone.

As before, you can always change the answers to the subjective questions on the results page, so there’s no reason to start a whole new space just because you originally selected the light color options and now you want to see the dark options too.

The Product Page

We have always been proud of the way we display product; we tell you the story behind the name, and make sure you are ordering both samples and flooring in a way that makes the most sense. The problem we noticed is that there is an awful lot of information we want to get across to you and have a very limited space to do it.

We went back to the drawing board and came up with a product page that allows you to learn as much about the floor as you want, order samples, and when you’re ready, order flooring in a way that did not sacrifice any of the original content or functionality, but is in a much cleaner and easier to understand package:

And to order flooring:

Our industry leading sampling program hasn’t changed, but we have made the process of understanding and using it easier:

To make it even easier, when a sample is ordered, we add that floor to your favorites list so you can find it again quickly:

All The Collections

There are a ton more changes you can discover for yourself, but the last one I want to mention is for those of you who wanted to see some flooring options, but couldn’t spare the 11 seconds it takes to complete the Revel Wood Selector. We now have a page where you can view every single floor we offer (spoiler alert: it’s a lot):

You can browse every collection, learn a little more about each floor, and see all the options. You still won’t be able to purchase anything without going through the selector (as it’s how we ensure we are selling you a product we can stand behind for your situation), but if you just wanted to get an idea of the types of floors we offer, this is the place for you.

When can I explore the new site for myself?

Great question, we are in the final stages of testing and the new site should be live by late July. See you then!