What Small Ecommerce Businesses Can Learn from Rugs Direct About Trust, AI and Product Discovery

Excerpt: The way consumers shop online is changing as search, social media, reviews and AI increasingly overlap. Sharon Gautschi of Elevated Brands Group shares lessons from Rugs Direct that small ecommerce businesses can use to build trust, improve merchandising and make online buying easier.

The challenge of selling online has changed.

In the early years of e-commerce, retailers had to persuade shoppers that entering a credit card number on a website was safe and that an online order would actually arrive. Those concerns haven’t disappeared entirely, but they no longer differentiate a reputable online seller. Today’s customer expects secure transactions, reliable fulfillment, and professional websites as a starting point.

The harder challenge is earning confidence throughout a shopping journey that may extend far beyond your website.

A potential customer may discover a product on Instagram or Pinterest, look it up on Google, compare several sellers, read customer reviews, watch videos and ask an artificial intelligence assistant for recommendations before deciding where to buy. As Sharon Gautschi, Chief Merchandising Officer at Elevated Brands Group (which operates Rugs Direct and Lightopia), explained in an interview with PowerHomeBiz, trust is increasingly built across the entire customer experience rather than at one isolated point in the transaction.

Gautschi leads merchandising for Rugs Direct and Lightopia, giving her a front-row view of how online product discovery and shopping behavior are evolving. Her insights offer important lessons for small e-commerce companies that cannot compete with Amazon-sized inventories or massive advertising budgets but can compete through expertise, relevance and a better buying experience.

Key Takeaways

• Consumer trust is built across search, social media, reviews, AI tools and the retailer’s own website.
• Smaller online retailers can compete successfully through expertise and curation instead of trying to offer the largest assortment.
• Product pages should reduce uncertainty, not simply persuade visitors to buy.
• Better filters, recommendations and merchandising can overcome choice overload.
• AI is most useful when it solves a real shopping problem instead of being added simply because the technology is popular.
• Detailed and structured product information is becoming increasingly important for AI-assisted product discovery.
• Price is easy for competitors to copy; expertise, service and a distinctive point of view are much harder to duplicate.
• Customer searches, returns, questions and abandonment behavior can tell entrepreneurs where their stores need improvement.

>> For the full Question and Answer, read Sharon Gautschi on E-Commerce Trust, AI Shopping and the Future of Product Discovery

1. Trust Is No Longer Just About the Checkout Page

For years, e-commerce advice focused heavily on traditional trust signals: secure checkout, recognizable payment methods, contact information and professional website design. Those remain important, but modern shoppers evaluate a retailer through many more signals.

A customer may see your business on social media before visiting your website. They may search your company name, compare prices, read Reddit discussions, check reviews or ask an AI assistant whether your product is appropriate for their needs. If the information they encounter is inconsistent, outdated or confusing, trust can erode before they ever see your checkout page.

That means businesses need consistency across their entire digital footprint. Product specifications, pricing, policies, branding and customer-service information should not contradict one another depending on where a customer encounters the company.

PowerHomeBiz explores this broader issue in Why Trust Is the New Competitive Advantage for Small Businesses. For e-commerce sellers specifically, Top 10 Ecommerce Mistakes That Cost Small Businesses Sales explains how unclear policies, weak product information and poor usability can undermine both trust and conversions.

2. Make the First-Time Customer’s Decision Easier

Gautschi advises newer retailers to make three things immediately understandable: who the company is, what it sells and what happens if the purchase does not work out. A beautiful brand cannot compensate for confusing shipping information, incomplete product descriptions or a return policy customers cannot find.

“You can have beautiful branding, but if the product information is incomplete, shipping is confusing or the return policy is buried, a first-time customer is going to hesitate.”

This is particularly important for an unknown business. A first-time customer has no prior relationship with the company, so the website has to remove as many doubts as possible.

That means clearly answering practical questions. When will the order ship? What exactly is included? What materials are used? What size is appropriate? Who pays return shipping? Can an item be exchanged? Is customer support available if something goes wrong?

The best product page does not merely generate desire. It reduces uncertainty.

3. Small Retailers Can Win With Expertise

One of Gautschi’s most useful observations for small entrepreneurs is that they should not automatically try to compete with the biggest retailers on assortment.

“You probably cannot compete with the largest retailers on assortment or price, but you can know your category exceptionally well.”

A small store may carry hundreds of products while a major marketplace carries millions. Trying to win that numerical competition makes little sense. Instead, smaller sellers can become unusually knowledgeable about a narrower category.

“Help people make decisions. Curate rather than simply accumulate products.”

A specialty retailer can explain which product works for which customer. It can create buying guides, comparison charts, instructional videos, FAQs and curated collections. It can answer detailed questions that a generic marketplace does not answer well.

As Gautschi puts it, the goal is to help customers leave the site feeling more confident about what they should buy. That creates value even before the transaction occurs.

This same principle appears in PowerHomeBiz’s guide to keeping your entrepreneurial edge as a small business owner: smaller businesses often have advantages in specialization, flexibility and customer closeness that larger competitors find harder to reproduce.

4. Your Product Page Must Replace What the Customer Cannot Experience

Home décor illustrates one of e-commerce’s most difficult problems. A person shopping for a rug online cannot physically feel its texture, inspect the pile or immediately understand what an 8-by-10-foot rug will look like under a particular sofa.

Successful e-commerce therefore requires businesses to compensate for whatever the customer loses by not shopping in person.

Rugs Direct uses a room visualization tool that allows customers to upload a photograph and preview a rug in their own space. Its website also provides filters, buying guidance and a 30-day return window.

A small retailer may not have the resources to build an advanced visualization platform, but the same principle applies. Depending on the product, you can reduce uncertainty with:

• Photos showing multiple angles
• Images that demonstrate scale
• Detailed measurements
• Material and construction information
• Product videos
• Compatibility information
• Customer photos
• Size guides
• Comparison tables
• Detailed FAQs
• Honest descriptions of limitations
• Clear return and exchange policies

Baymard’s current benchmark of major e-commerce websites found that up to 62% had a “mediocre” or worse product-page user experience, demonstrating that even large companies struggle with this problem.

PowerHomeBiz’s guide to reducing costly e-commerce returns makes a related point: product pages should help prevent the wrong customer from buying the wrong item, not simply persuade everyone to complete a purchase.

5. More Products Can Sometimes Produce Fewer Decisions

Entrepreneurs often assume that a bigger catalog automatically creates a better store. More products can certainly attract more customers, but an assortment becomes a liability when shoppers cannot understand the differences between their options.

This is where merchandising matters.

Gautschi explains that effective retail translates vague customer needs into manageable choices. A shopper may not know the technical terminology for a particular rug but may know that the product needs to feel comfortable in a family room shared with children and a dog. The retailer’s job is to translate that practical need into relevant products.

Filters are one tool, but curation can go further. Consider collections based on problems, lifestyles or situations rather than relying solely on conventional product categories.

Instead of merely:

Office Chairs

Consider collections such as:

• Best Office Chairs for Small Home Offices
• Chairs for People Who Sit Eight Hours a Day
• Ergonomic Chairs Under $500
• Office Chairs for Tall Users

The inventory has not changed. The shopping experience has.

The Baymard Institute’s product-list and filtering research similarly shows that effective filtering and sorting can help customers narrow enormous catalogs into a much smaller group of relevant options.

6. Use AI to Solve a Shopping Problem

Artificial intelligence is now appearing throughout e-commerce, but adding an AI feature does not automatically improve the customer experience.

Gautschi offers a useful test: Does the technology make shopping easier?

“For me, the value of AI is not AI itself. It is whether it makes shopping easier.”

If a customer is facing 500 possible products and an AI assistant can identify the five that match the customer’s budget, room, style and practical requirements, the technology is creating genuine value. If it simply adds another chatbot customers must navigate, it may create more friction than it reduces.

Elevated Brands Group has been experimenting with this approach through Lightopia’s conversational shopping assistant, Ask Cleo. The current Lightopia website prominently includes the assistant throughout its shopping experience.

The lesson for a small business is not that every store needs to build an AI shopping assistant immediately. The lesson is to start with the customer problem.

• Where are shoppers becoming stuck?
• What questions repeatedly reach customer service?
• Which product attributes are difficult to compare?
• Where do people leave the site?

Technology should address one of those problems.

7. AI Is Becoming Part of Product Discovery

The rise of AI shopping tools also changes how retailers need to think about visibility.

In NIQ’s May 2026 research, 42% of consumers surveyed said they had used at least one AI tool while shopping during the previous month. An August 2026 NIQ report found nearly three-quarters of shoppers using AI during product discovery.

Search engines are not disappearing. Neither are social media, marketplaces, retailer websites or reviews. Instead, another discovery layer is being added.

For entrepreneurs, that makes accurate product information more important, not less.

8. Merchandise for Humans — and for the Systems Helping Humans Shop

Gautschi makes a particularly important observation about AI-assisted shopping: retailers are increasingly merchandising both for people and for the technology helping those people find products.

An AI system cannot feel a fabric or inspect a lamp. It relies on information.

If one retailer provides only:

Beautiful contemporary rug, perfect for your home

and another provides dimensions, pile height, fiber composition, colors, construction, recommended rooms, cleaning instructions, indoor/outdoor suitability and lifestyle information, the second retailer gives both customers and automated systems much more useful material.

Google’s own documentation recommends using Product and Merchant Listing structured data to provide machine-readable information including product prices, availability, shipping and return information.

NIQ has also highlighted structured, AI-readable product information as an increasingly important foundation for AI-mediated commerce.

PowerHomeBiz examines this emerging issue further in Is Traditional Ecommerce SEO Dead? What’s Working in 2026.

9. Do Not Let AI Damage the Information Customers Trust

There is another side to AI shopping: accuracy.

If an AI assistant recommends a product based on an incorrect size, outdated price or nonexistent feature, customers may blame the retailer even if the error originated elsewhere.

Gartner found that among consumers who had used generative AI during a recent purchase, 54% said they needed to double-check all of the information the AI provided. Gartner concluded that accuracy is increasingly becoming a brand issue rather than merely a technology issue.

For retailers, this reinforces the importance of keeping product feeds, descriptions, inventory information and structured data accurate and synchronized.

10. Competing Primarily on Price Is a Dangerous Strategy

Price is powerful, but it is also one of the easiest competitive advantages to lose. As Gautschi said, “Price is very easy for someone else to copy.”

Another retailer can lower its price tomorrow.

A marketplace can subsidize shipping.

A competitor can run a promotion.

A manufacturer can enter the market directly.

Gautschi argues that what is much harder to duplicate is a retailer’s point of view: knowing a specific customer, curating an exceptional assortment, providing excellent service or becoming genuinely useful in a complicated category. For a small business, being memorable to the right customer can be far more sustainable than attempting to be the cheapest option for everyone.

“Especially for a smaller business, I would rather be memorable to the right customer than inexpensive to everyone.”

This is especially relevant to specialty e-commerce. If shoppers choose your store only because you are $4 cheaper, their loyalty lasts until somebody else becomes $5 cheaper.

If they choose you because they trust your judgment, understand your recommendations and know you will help them when something goes wrong, the relationship is more difficult for a competitor to steal.

11. Pay Attention to What Customers Actually Do

Business plans inevitably contain assumptions about what customers want, how they will shop, and what will persuade them to buy. Actual customer behavior provides something much more valuable: evidence. Gautschi recommends that entrepreneurs closely examine what visitors search for, which products they cannot find, what they return, what they ask customer service, and where they abandon the purchase process. These behaviors can reveal opportunities and problems that may never appear in a traditional business plan.

As Gautschi explains, “Those behaviors will tell you things that a business plan cannot.” A repeated search for a product you do not currently carry may point to an assortment opportunity, while repeated returns for the same reason could indicate that a description, photograph, or specification is creating the wrong expectation. Similarly, recurring customer-service questions may show that important information is missing or difficult to find, and unusually high abandonment at a particular stage of checkout may expose friction that needs to be addressed.

Small businesses can have an advantage here because they can often respond to customer feedback more quickly than much larger organizations. An entrepreneur who regularly reviews site searches, support questions, reviews, returns, and checkout behavior can make incremental improvements to product selection, content, and the shopping experience instead of waiting for a major redesign. Listening to customers should therefore be an ongoing part of operating the business rather than an occasional research exercise.

12. The Future of Online Shopping Will Be More Conversational and Visual

The conventional e-commerce experience still asks shoppers to navigate a structure created largely around product databases. Customers typically select a department, move through categories and subcategories, apply filters, open individual product pages, and compare several choices on their own. That model works, but it often requires shoppers to translate what they want into the terminology and structure the retailer uses.

Gautschi expects that process to become much more conversational and visual. A customer decorating a living room, for example, may eventually be able to show a retailer a photograph and explain that the room should feel warmer, that the existing sofa must remain and that the total budget cannot exceed a certain amount. Instead of requiring the shopper to search for rugs, lighting, and accessories separately, an AI-powered shopping experience could interpret those constraints and present combinations that work together.

This does not necessarily mean that AI should make the final decision for the customer. Gartner’s 2026 consumer research found that consumers were far more willing to let AI help research and narrow product choices than to let it make purchases on their behalf. The distinction matters: shoppers seem interested in help without surrendering control.

Gautschi sees a similar balance emerging in highly personal categories such as home décor. AI can become very good at understanding constraints, narrowing choices, and helping people visualize possibilities, but technology does not eliminate the emotional element of deciding what belongs in a person’s home. As she explains,

“The best technology will not take that decision away. It will make people more confident making it.”

For small businesses considering AI tools, that principle provides a useful guide. The goal should not be to automate every interaction or remove customers from the decision-making process. Technology is most valuable when it reduces unnecessary work, helps shoppers understand their options and gives them greater confidence that the product they ultimately choose is right for them.

The Bottom Line

The tools surrounding e-commerce continue to change, but the basic customer need is remarkably stable.

People want to find something they like. They want enough information to feel confident buying it. They want to know that the business will deliver what it promises and help if something goes wrong.

AI, visualization tools, personalization and sophisticated search can all improve that process. But they work best when built on something simpler: useful product information, thoughtful merchandising, clear policies, genuine expertise and an understanding of the customer.

For small e-commerce entrepreneurs, that is encouraging. You may not be able to outspend the largest retailers or carry the biggest assortment.

You can still become the retailer that makes the decision easiest.

Author/Interview Source Note:

This article draws on an interview with Sharon Gautschi, Chief Merchandising Officer at Elevated Brands Group, which operates Rugs Direct and Lightopia. Gautschi has extensive experience in home décor and e-commerce merchandising and focuses on helping consumers create beautiful, well-lived homes while improving product discovery and the digital shopping experience.

FAQ