Home styling startup Homie Living launches "Get Inspired & Shop" online platform homieliv.com in HK
Home styling startup Homie Living launches "Get Inspired & Shop" online platform homieliv.com in Hong Kong, with an upcoming AI-enabled “home styling portfolio generator” twist
The new platform brings Hong Kong homeowners over 2,500 interior design cases and 5,000 furniture and homeware products for online inspiration and purchase
Upcoming “New Home Planner” harnesses AI and machine learning to generate furniture mix-and-match recommendations
The startup is supported by the Hong Kong Science Park, TWGH and the Hong Kong Productivity Council’s Innovation and Technology Fund
Homie Living launches "Get Inspired & Shop" online platform homieliv.com in Hong Kong, offering over 5000 furniture home product options, targeting new homeowners.
Hong Kong-based home furnishing startup Homie Living announces the launch of its online “Get Inspired & Shop” home platform (homieliv.com), a solution that offers over 2,500 pieces of interior design cases created by over 100 local interior designers, together with a product catalog with over 5,000 furniture, homeware and smart home products for instant purchases.
The platform offers over 2,500 interior design inspirations offered by 100 local interior designers in Hong Kong.
In addition to consolidating home inspirational content and products, the platform links aesthetic interior design visuals to the exact or similar furniture and homeware products used, realising a seamless “Get Inspired & Shop” journey within a single platform. By the end of 2021, the platform will also launch the new “New Home Planner” functionality - a service that automatically generates furniture and homeware styling recommendations using machine learning with an algorithm co-developed with interior specialists in Hong Kong.
The platform links aesthetic interior design visuals to exact or similar furniture used.
Homie Living’s Co-Founders - Stephanie Lam (left) and Lydia Lau (right)
Founded by two post-90s female entrepreneurs Stephanie Lam and Lydia Lau, the startup was selected as one of the Hong Kong Science Park Ideation programme teams (previously known as STEP) in 2020. The platform is also funded by the Hong Kong Productivity Council’s Innovation and Technology Fund, as well as the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals’ Youth Entrepreneur Empowerment Programme. To date, the platform has achieved 100,000 monthly active users and sold over 3,500 pieces of furniture and homeware items online since the launch of the platform prototype in 2020. “It is very encouraging to see the trust our customers have placed on the platform, many felt comfortable buying furniture online without seeing the actual items offline, even for products with high pricing points for instance a sofa priced over HKD10000.” said Lydia.
“The furniture shopping scene is largely an offline business in Hong Kong, while we see e-commerce in the Home and Furnishing industry flourish in many US and European markets, or Southeast Asian markets."
“The furniture shopping scene is largely an offline business in Hong Kong, while we see e-commerce in the Home and Furnishing industry flourish in many US and European markets, or Southeast Asian markets such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.” said Stephanie. “3 years ago, both of us went through the traditional and painful furniture purchasing journey when we moved out and spent consecutive weekends at furniture malls to repeatedly go through the process of selecting, measuring and mix-and-matching. At the end we had to rush our purchase decisions in order to meet the move-in deadline at the expense of the overall styling of the new home” added Lydia. This experience has inspired the two to found the platform and revolutionise home research and shopping journeys in Hong Kong.
“When it comes to furnishing and styling homes, you will be surprised how clueless some new homeowners can be. Often the decisions are made in a rushed and ill-informed situation and they couldn't get sufficient assistance both online and offline on questions such as which home style to pursue, how much budget to spare for a piece of furniture, what is the difference between choosing a sofa made of LeatherTex or Linen fabric etc...” Stephanie has led the free styling consultation service programme prior to the launch of the platform in 2021 as part of the market study. Conducted consultations for 5 post-90s new homeowners to help compile their furniture and homeware portfolios according to their requirements on both functionalities and aesthetics.
Homie Living offers free home styling consultations to post-90s from owning an entire flat (left) to a bedroom (right) as part of pre-launch market study.
Lydia adds, “These consultation sessions have laid a strong foundation to the platform’s initial development in terms of our product offerings and identifying opportunities that tackle young homeowners’ problems.” By the end of 2021, Homie Living will launch the ‘New Home Planner’, a functionality that automates home styling consultations, leveraging AI and machine learning to generate custom made home styling portfolios for a wider spectrum of users. Users would be able to get their best suited mix-and-match home portfolios by simply putting in their flat size, budget, desired style and their favourite colours.”
About Homie Living
Founded in December 2019, Homie Living is a platform inspired by the struggling personal experience of the 3 post-90s founders in their very first homeware and furniture purchasing journey. The platform believes in the importance of getting sufficient inspiration in the home styling journey, and aims to become the top-of-mind social e-commerce platform in Hong Kong, offering an efficient, one-stop online destination for new homeowners. Homie Living delivers over 2,500 interior design inspirations offered by more than 100 Hong Kong local interior designers, as well as 5,000+ options of furniture, homeware and smart home products with high price-to-value ratio. Homie Living was selected as a member of the Hong Kong Science Park STEP program in 2020.
Contacts
Stephanie Lam
Email: stephanie.lam@homiehk.com
Tel: +852 95511356
Lydia Lau
Email: lydia.lau@homiehk.com
Tel: +852 61479633
