With the Coronavirus pandemic in full swing, the transition from brick and mortar to digital shopping experiences has been kicked into overdrive.
Even before news of Coronavirus broke, retailers have been struggling to attract foot traffic to their locations. To make matters worse, consumer confidence is now the lowest it’s been in five years.1
There is good news on the horizon. New breakthroughs in 3D technologies, mobile commerce, and AR/VR are ushering in a new era of immersive online shopping experiences; transforming how customers interact with brands—and their products—in the digital space.
In 2019, Gen Z passed Millennials as the most populous generation, making up roughly 32% of the population.2 Catering to this digital native audience will be key for retailers moving forward. Mobile commerce, or mcommerce, is expected to make up 54% of all ecommerce transactions by 2021.3
If you pair that with the fact more consumers are shopping from home, the time is now to adopt a robust, modern, 3D ecommerce strategy. Here are 3 ways retailers can win more customers digitally:
Own Your Digital Transformation: Make Digital Transformation a Priority
The main goal of a digital transformation is to provide the best possible online customer experience. As of this writing, non-essential businesses remain closed in many parts of the world. This is forcing the hand of many retailers to lean into their digital transformation and adopt omnichannel strategies to meet the shift in customers’ needs.
The first step is identifying which strategies fit your brand, your products, and your sales and marketing goals. Data and analytics are a key part of any digital transformation, as they allow you to create more meaningful and relevant customer experiences. Make sure you have a system in place (ERP, CRM or other software tools) to track who is engaging with your content and automate re-targeting.
A true digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight. You need to make sure all your teams are on the same page, and give them the online tools, resources, and digital assets they need to drive revenues online.
Embrace CGI Before Your Competition
In the late 80’s we witnessed the transformation from film to digital. It changed, well, everything. Currently, we’re in the midst of the transformation from digital to CGI. How can you set up your business for a successful CGI content future? Don’t be the last one at the table.
To get started with any CGI content strategy, you need high-quality, easily accessible 3D visualizations of your products for use across web, mobile, AR and VR. The idea of converting your original product files into compact, web-ready 3D files may sound time-consuming and expensive, but newer technologies, such as VNTANA’s end-to-end omnichannel 3D platform, make it easy and affordable to upload your existing files and receive plug-and-play 3D product files to create immersive web experiences.
Once you have 3D assets of your products, you and your marketing teams can get creative with how you deploy them. Oftentimes, utilizing 3D, CGI renderings can be as easy as uploading a YouTube video to your site. To get started, reach out to your design and manufacturing teams to understand what software they are using today to design products in to see how to leverage these files across all departments.
Create Personalized, Digital 3D Experiences
With more sales taking place online, product returns are at an all-time high. It makes sense. It’s hard to gauge how something fits, looks or feels without physically having the product. However, studies show that interactive 3D product visualizations and AR experiences can decrease returns by more than forty percent4 and more than double online conversion rates.5
By creating a digital 3D product interaction or virtual “try-on,” you can create less uncertainty in the eyes of the buyer and instill confidence that the purchase they’re making is the right one. From placing a 3D couch in someone’s living room to holding your phone over your feet to overlay a pair of 3D shoes, retailers are getting creative with how consumers interact with their products online—giving consumers the freedom to not only interact with products, but virtually try-them on giving them to confidence tomake purchases without going to a store.
We’re Just Getting Started
The convergence of the real world and our 2-dimensional web is already underway, but we’ve barely scratched the surface. Worldwide spending on AR and VR is forecast to grow from $10.5 billion in 2019 to $18.8 billion in 2020, an increase of 78.5% YOY, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). The IDC also predicts the AR and VR space will achieve a five-year annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of 77% from 2019-2023.
It’s no wonder big-box retailers such as Amazon, Wal-Mart, Nike, and Target are already using AR and VR as a key part of their ecommerce and marketing strategies. Innovation stops for no one. The web today will most likely look archaic 5 years from now. It’s clear that the retailers and businesses who are early adopters of these new technologies will attract and win more customers, shorten sales cycles, and build better brand loyalty. It’s a simple idea: Give consumers what they want. Right now, they want 3D.
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VNTANA provides an end-to-end omnichannel 3D automation platform that enables you and your teams to convert your real-world products to beautiful 3D renderings in minutes, not days. Schedule a demo now to see how you can easily create and manage interactive 3D models of your products for use across web, AR, VR—and whatever R is next. Learn more
- https://data.oecd.org/leadind/consumer-confidence-index-cci.htm
- https://www.inc.com/anne-gherini/gen-z-is-about-to-outnumber-millennials-heres-how-that-will-affect-business-world.html
- https://pixelunion.net/blogs/state-of-the-union/mobile-ecommerce-stats
- https://arinsider.co/2019/10/21/macys-reduces-product-returns-to/
- https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/shopify-3d
