For over 40 years, Freedom Furniture has been a household and trusted name in Australian and New Zealand homes, offering stylish, high-quality pieces that help customers create spaces they love. But meeting shoppers’ expectations today takes more than great furniture — it requires a seamless, omnichannel experience that ensures no customer leaves empty-handed.
With over 60 stores and a strong legacy, Freedom embarked on a bold transformation to bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping. Over the past four years, the company has redesigned stores, replatformed its ecommerce experience, and introduced a dropshipping model to create an ‘endless aisle’, dramatically expanding product choice and flexibility.
As Freedom scaled, search and product discovery became critical. With a rapidly growing catalog and evolving merchandising needs, AI-powered search became the key to helping customers find exactly what they wanted—reinforcing the company’s core mantra: never lose a sale.
From Outdated to Outstanding: A Complete Digital Overhaul
One of the most critical changes was replatforming from a legacy system that was never designed for true ecommerce. Tied to the point-of-sale, it showcased only a fraction of the catalog, limiting online sales to just 6% of total revenue.
Migrating to SAP Commerce Cloud helped online sales grow to over 25% of total revenue. At the same time, the company introduced a dropshipping model, expanding its catalog from 10,000 to 45,000 SKUs and enabling an “endless aisle” — giving customers access to a vast selection of products without requiring Freedom to stock them all in-store.
As Freedom Furniture expanded, search and merchandising struggled to keep up — creating friction for both customers and sales associates.
- Search friction: With the same outdated search online and in-store, finding products became frustrating. Shoppers abandoned search in favor of static category navigation, while associates spent valuable time helping customers find items manually.
- Merchandising bottlenecks: Manually curating thousands of product listings became unsustainable, especially during promotions. Instead of focusing on strategy, merchandisers were stuck in a constant cycle of updates.
- Lack of scalability: Freedom’s legacy search engine couldn’t interpret natural language queries or deliver personalized results, leading to irrelevant suggestions and missed sales.
As Paula Mitchell, Digital General Manager at Freedom explains:
As our catalog expanded, we recognized the need for a more personalized and relevant shopping experience — one that met customer expectations while ensuring scalable growth. We had reached the limits of our SAP Solr search capabilities, and AI search became essential to achieving our vision and simplifying product discovery for our customers.
To support its growth and ensure a seamless experience, Freedom needed an AI-powered solution that could make product discovery effortless.
Coveo’s technology roadmap played a pivotal role in sealing the deal, offering a clear vision for future innovations like Generative AI (GenAI) and personalized search experiences. Additionally, having a dedicated team in the region provided Freedom with the reassurance of localized support and expertise, further solidifying Coveo as the perfect partner.
This shared vision and alignment of goals have empowered Freedom to unlock new possibilities in search, merchandising, and customer experience, setting the stage for continued growth and success.
AI in Action: Smarter Search, Increased Engagement, and Better Merchandising
Coveo’s AI-powered solution is already transforming the Freedom Furniture shopping experience—delivering more relevant results, increasing customer engagement, and reducing manual effort for the merchandising team. The improved, intent-aware search ensures customers find what they need faster, with smarter suggestions, dynamic facets, and AI-driven recommendations that enhance product discovery.
On the merchandising side, AI has streamlined what was once a time-consuming, manual process. Previously, Freedom’s team spent hours curating product listings, an approach that became unsustainable as the catalog grew. Now, AI dynamically optimizes product placement based on real-time customer behavior, ensuring that high-performing and relevant items are surfaced automatically. While the team initially set rules to maintain control, they quickly saw the benefits of AI-led merchandising and confidently let automation take the lead — while still retaining the flexibility to fine-tune results when needed.
With Coveo, Freedom is creating a seamless, intelligent shopping experience that not only makes product discovery effortless for customers but also empowers its team to focus on strategic initiatives rather than manual updates. The result is a smarter, more efficient retail experience that drives revenue and deepens customer satisfaction.
Early Impact: The Proof is in the Performance
After just 30 days the impact of Coveo AI was already clearly evident. Freedom is seeing significant improvements in search relevance and operational efficiency, enabling the team to manage its growing catalog with greater ease. Customer engagement metrics and average order values have also shown positive trends.
These early wins reinforce the decision to partner with Coveo and the potential for even greater results ahead.
With Coveo, we’ve taken product discovery to the next level. Our customers are finding what they need faster, and our team can focus on innovation rather than manual tasks. This is just the beginning of what we can achieve together.
A Blueprint for Omnichannel Excellence
Through innovation, strategic partnerships, and customer-first thinking, Freedom Furniture has set a new benchmark for what’s possible in omnichannel retail. As Paula explains, “Some companies talk about digital first; we’re firmly focused on omnichannel first.” The company understands that customers engage across multiple touchpoints, whether starting online and finishing in-store, or vice versa—particularly for tactile products like sofas and mattresses, where customers want to “touch, sit, or feel” before buying.
To reduce friction, Freedom has introduced features like in-store quotes that can be completed online, ensuring sales staff are rewarded regardless of where the purchase occurs. “You can get a quote in-store, go home, and check out online, and we ensure the salesperson is rewarded,” Paula explains. This approach eliminates competition between channels, creating a complementary relationship between digital and physical retail.
Freedom has also enabled in-store purchases and returns for drop-ship products—a unique capability in the Australian market. “We’re the only furniture retailer in Australia that allows you to buy and return drop-ship products in-store,” Paula highlights. By removing barriers, like restrictions on “online-only” items, Freedom delivers a seamless end-to-end shopping experience.
This commitment to breaking down barriers and creating an integrated journey underscores Freedom’s dedication to leveraging technology for both customer satisfaction and operational excellence.
The Road Ahead: Harnessing GenAI to Boost Customer Confidence
Looking ahead, Freedom is also exploring the potential of Generative AI (GenAI) to redefine how customers interact with their brand. This includes implementing generative answering capabilities to provide instant, intelligent responses to customer questions, directly in the search box. From aftercare advice to warranty details, shoppers will be able to ask natural language questions like “How do I clean my sofa?” or “What kind of sofa warranty do you offer?” and receive clear, relevant answers in seconds—building trust and making purchase decisions easier.
The company also has plans to introduce customer-assisted kiosks, designed to provide a more immersive shopping journey. These kiosks will showcase stunning, large-format images that bring the brand to life and offer an engaging, interactive experience. “We’re looking to put customer-assisted kiosks into stores to help sell our products,” Paula explains. “It’s about giving a more immersive experience—big, beautiful images that you just don’t get otherwise.”
Additionally, the integration of a robust search tool on these kiosks is poised to elevate the shopping experience even further. “Having a search tool that actually works on that kiosk is going to be unreal,” Paula adds.
This bold vision positions Freedom Furniture as a leader in retail innovation, blending immersive technology with AI to create a future-ready shopping experience.