Customers using Boll & Branch's new AI-powered bed designer have on average doubled their order value since the brand started testing the tool in April, according to Katia Unlu, chief commercial officer at the luxury bedding maker.

"It's quite substantial in terms of just the revenue," Unlu said during a panel on service-oriented retail experiences at industry conference eTail Boston. "Another really interesting aside that it's had is surfacing these product categories that we don't necessarily sell a ton of."

The company, best known for its sheets, has seen an uptick in demand for decorative pieces like throw blankets and pillows among customers engaging with the AI tool, Unlu added.

The tool is a virtual bed designer. Customers can style their bed themselves on Boll & Branch's website, or work with one of the brand's in-store ambassadors to do it in-store. The brand is using the tool in its stores and testing it online.

The AI tool grew out of a service the brand found difficult to scale. Boll & Branch runs a retail program that installs bedding in customers' homes, but Unlu said it's been "hard to scale" because not everybody wants people in their bedrooms. The virtual bed designer lets customers visualise Boll & Branch items in their own bedroom instead, making the service accessible to everyone.

The company's physical retail strategy supplied the foundation. Boll & Branch will soon have 19 stores across the US, an expansion trajectory the company bases on people's preference for making home and bed decisions with a hands-on, in-store experience.

"We tested it out first in department stores; we did partnerships with Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's," Unlu said. "We had some idea what this was going to look like before we ventured out to opening our own stores."

Boll & Branch opened its first store in Short Hills, New Jersey, in 2017 and now has shops in Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Dallas, among other cities. Unlu said the brand thinks of stores as a "repeat and lifetime value accelerator."

"Service and building a relationship with the customer was at the core of why we opened these stores," she said.

Boll & Branch is not alone in betting on physical retail. DTC brands including Brooklinen, Mejuri, and Warby Parker have all focused on building out their in-store retail playbooks, and their success has produced a new path for DTC brands to thrive despite broader challenges.

For Boll & Branch, the next step is turning a store-driven service model into a digital one. If the doubled order values from the April test hold as the bed designer rolls out more broadly, the AI tool could carry a core in-store experience — and its cross-selling power in decorative categories — to every customer who visits the site.