63% of shoppers believe that product imagery is more important than the product description.
If they don’t like the picture, they won’t even make it to the text.
That is a lot of people skimming over your product if the image doesn’t grab their attention or impress them enough to be curious about the product. Yet many brands and retailers rely primarily on imagery to stand out from the crowd in a noisy market.
With the percentage of global retail accounted for by e-commerce growing at astounding rates, brands need to ask themselves if the visuals they are using to represent their products are up to snuff. There is nothing wrong with traditional photography and videography, but if a photo is worth 1,000 words, imagine what something better than photography is worth. Here is how 3D visualization and product configuration boost sales and save brands time and money.
3D Is Immersive
3D product experiences do more than show the buyer what the product looks like; they allow the buyer to explore and evaluate the product in many of the same ways as they would in store. This opportunity to engage puts the power of the experience in the shopper’s hands, and allows them to discover what about the product makes it the perfect fit for their needs. The ability to engage and view a product in 3D has also shown to drive higher consumer confidence in the purchase, which drives higher sales and a lower frequency of returns.
This is particularly true when 3D is paired with augmented reality for ecommerce. According to research from Deloitte, 40% of shoppers are willing to pay more for a product that they can experience in AR and 61% would prefer to shop with a brand that offers AR experiences.
3D Shows Buyers EXACTLY What They Are Getting
The ability to purchase a product that is tailored to your exact needs is a key differentiator among brands for many buyers. There is a reason that Henry Ford’s famous approach of “you can have any color as long as it’s black” didn’t stick. People like choices, but they also want to know what they are getting.
For products that offer a variety of colors, materials, or features, brands have the option of only showcasing the most popular or base choice (which creates a subpar buying experience), shooting the product in every color and configuration (time consuming and can make a site heavy), or using 3D configurators to allow buyers to see the exact selections they are choosing for the product before they purchase.
3D product configurators also allow brands to showcase additional features and add ons as they will appear with the primary product, without confusing the buyer as to what is included in their order. Nothing is worse than receiving your purchase and finding out you need another piece or product that needs to be bought separately. Adding 3D configurators to ecommerce sites helps prevent those headaches.
