Identifying Williams-Sonoma's X Factor

2. Lifestyle merchandising: The best to way sell home products is to show them in peoples’ homes, Connolly said. Williams-Sonoma goes to great lengths to make that possible. It scouts out and rents homes in markets as far away as Mexico and Canada, then transforms those homes — e.g., paints walls, replaces furniture — into the perfect canvases for its catalog photo shoots. "It's like making movies," said Connolly. While Williams-Sonoma does have the ability to use CGI technology that can digitally put products into photos/rooms, it doesn't plan on abandoning its on-site photo shoots. It's who we are as a brand, Connolly said.