3D Technologies Posed to Redefine Luxury E-commerce
Contributor: Adi Patil
Sarah Willersdorf, Boston Consulting Group’s partner and managing director, in the company’s most recent study, entitled “True-Luxury Global Consumer Insight,” conducted with Altagamma, says that even though “the store is critical across all age groups, it needs to be combined with digital.” Unsurprisingly, digital is closely tied to emerging technology. Technology that global luxury giants have been wary of adopting until recently.
With multiple luxury-tech solutions entering the market, the online customer experience keeps changing while trying to absorb the best of both worlds: physical and digital. Still, engagement and interactivity remain a concern for retailers. Enter 3D product imaging.
“It is important for our customers to have the opportunity to examine the goods in detail, and 3D visualization allows us to bridge the gap between online shopping and brick-and-mortar stores,” says Jay Nigrelli, VP of eCommerce at Samsonite.
The worldwide leader in superior travel bags, luggage, and accessories, Samsonite is now using a 3D product imaging solution for its US online stores. 3D visualization has been made available for products by Samsonite, American Tourister, Hartmann, High Sierra, and Gregory Packs.
3D product imaging offers the highest level of engagement by providing highly interactive 3D product representations. A 3D View (and that’s the name of the format) has a ‘zoom in’ feature, can be rotated and showcased in motion, leaving the customers with no blind areas to wonder about.
With scalability and timeliness as common pain points of e-commerce visualization, having the right tool is vital. Luckily, some of the 3D visualization solutions allow retailers to shoot thousands of products in 3D every day and don’t require any specific equipment. Three minutes is enough for the image to be produced and automatically embedded into the online store through SDK. The format with data streaming loads in seconds on all devices, including smartphones.
Video tutorial: How to create and embed 3D images
Some retailers turn to product videos in hopes of enhancing the online shopping experience, yet, according to the Cappasity research, 95 percent of respondents prefer an interactive 3D representation to video playback.
Increased engagement and interactivity are not the only metrics to benefit from 3D visualization, the conversion rate is also a contender as proven by TSUM, one of the largest luxury goods department stores in Eastern Europe and the first company to have digitized over 60,000 products in 3D.
“We managed to increase conversion rate by almost 40% for products in categories which have been 3D digitized by Cappasity and have been clicked and viewed by visitors. 3D is the technology that allows us to be innovative and differentiate from our competitors, we are seeing stronger customer engagement.,” says Andreas Schmeidler, Chairman of TSUM.
When talking about the luxury segment, mentioning jewelry wouldn’t go remiss. As it’s only recently that 3D technologies have advanced enough to be able to process features typical for jewelry items: transparency, reflections of light, fluid shapes and unusual designs, the case of Guérin Joaillerie, the premium jewelry brand in Europe, is very representative.
“Discovery and innovation are part of Guérin Joaillerie’s DNA. We are excited to use the Cappasity solution to showcase our rings category in the most engaging of ways. With the launching of Atelier Guérin, we wanted to find a solution that will best express the different shades of colors of each gem to provide the best customer experience possible.” says Siham Nekrouf, Head of Digital, at Guérin Joaillerie. “Jewelry e-commerce demands unique, engaging content, and interactivity. The introduction of 3D product imaging is an exciting evolution within our digital marketing strategy.”
Lingerie with its delicate trims and lacy accents also poses no challenge for 3D-visualization as proven by F3 Studio, the European fashion brand that offers options both enticing and practical.
As I have already mentioned, 3D product imaging boosts engagement and interactivity, but how do we check that this is true? And if it is, how do we improve the current metrics? This is where AI analytics comes into play, bringing forward the data previously unavailable. It tracks the way site visitors interact with product images, whether 2D or 3D and displays key metrics on a heat map. Apart from dwell time, the tool highlights ‘zoom in’ points and the angles that proved especially interesting, and predicts the probability of the purchase based on the patterns in customer behavior. The gathered data could be decisive. For instance, you can save the money usually spent on retargeting, as the solution will tell you which user is likely to make a purchase.
