Stark last week announced a website refresh for StarkCarpet.com, complete with a new customizable mood-board tool, called Stark Boards, that is designed to help designers and the Stark team collaborate on room schemes. Stark also launched a trade-only ecommerce experience for registered members.

Stark relaunched its website on May 12 with trade-only functions.

Stark Boards are interactive mood boards that allow designers to share their vision with clients; similar in concept to a Pinterest board, Stark's boards let users gather, share, collect and compare images of Stark products as well as any other uploadable images. The tool is only available via Dashboard, a trade-only feature of the site that lets registered users track projects, save products, check on an order’s status, reach out to Stark Senior Vice President Chad Stark through a concierge messaging service and take advantage of other functions.

The Dashboard helps designers and clients collaborate with the store.

Stark explains, “The ease of sharing and collaborating on Stark Boards was a primary focus of the dashboard. Whenever a board is completed, a designer can easily print the board for a presentation or share it via email with the click of a button. The benefit of sharing via email is that now designers' clients can comment right on the screen next to the digital board about what they like or dislike and click on the product images to learn more about the product such as where's it's made, what's it's made of, etc.”

Says designer Elizabeth Pyne of McMillen Plus, "The Stark Boards are a great tool that I am really looking forward to using. It is wonderful that you can upload, resize and layer images from anywhere, whether they are Stark products or inspirations from other sources. It's a true digital mood board that will help a lot when it comes to planning design schemes."

Designers can edit and share their boards again and again, said Stark, “until the scheme is perfect and they are ready to place an order. Lastly, our account managers who know their account preferences can now proactively create boards for designers showing our new and exciting product as it gets introduced, with all the associated product information right there.”

Designers can save projects and inspiration with the new tools.

The site's update also means that visitors can now take advantage of the new "World of Stark" section, with updated content such as "Ashley's Window," a new blog by Ashley Stark, creative director; "Design Showcase," which spotlights designers; "Find a Designer," which links users to ASID's referral service; and an improved Products section with enhanced search options.

As Stark explains, a goal of the redesign was “to make our trade partners' jobs as easy as possible by extending all the services of our showrooms, like information and sample requests, communication and purchasability, to be live 24/7. We spent countless hours working with the trade community to dig deep into their needs as modern consumers and what we have to do to satisfy those needs. I believe strongly that our clients know best so we kept them involved at every step of the way through this two-year website project.”