Technology is constantly changing and evolving how we do business. Just as video content has been known to increase sales and is now a standard in the business world for advertising, social media and more, 3D is increasingly becoming the standard for today’s marketing and sales world. Just check the stats for the impact 3D is making across ecommerce and advertising channels:
3D is helping drive sales today! And, there is so much more that 3D and augmented reality can be used for going forward. Like most technologies, 3D ecommerce began primarily with consumer applications, like 3D ecommerce and AR applications like product try-on. But, 3D and AR technology is also quickly changing the world of B2B sales.
What is a digital showroom?
Many companies are using 3D and augmented reality technology to replace physical samples with digital samples by creating online 3D digital showrooms. Some businesses may be a bit cautious about completely forgoing physical samples. That is why it is always great to start with a few products that will make good 3D samples and still keep some physical samples of others so that they can send one physical sample of a product and then show the rest of the products virtually in a digital showroom.
What are the benefits of a digital showroom for B2B business?
Here are 4 Ways 3D Digital Showrooms are doing great things for business owners:
- Significantly reducing or eliminating sample costs
- Reducing carbon footprint (increasing sustainability)
- Increasing speed to market
- And increasing sales
How do you make a digital showroom with 3D assets?
In the beginning of your 3D journey starting with one 3D asset is perfect as there is a learning curve. Starting with just a few 3D assets allows buyers to learn how to look at virtual versions of products. Digital samples also help because they can be sent to buyers before physical samples ever have to be created, saving money and time.
One of our partners Polygon Labs is creating digital showrooms that are simple and easy to use. They have plugged in directly via API throughout out system to build digital showrooms allowing businesses to quickly and easily create digital showrooms for their products by simply dragging and dropping products into the showroom where they want them. This is why having a 3D strategy with the right solutions in place is so important. Digital showrooms remove the limitations of only being able to show a certain amount of products. With digital showrooms entire collections and product lines can be shown both past and present. 1000’s of products can now be shown at once if that is desired.
Barriers to Creating a 3D Digital Showroom
At the moment one of the biggest barriers in 3D revolves around accessibility issues. Currently many teams are working in different programs and exporting different files. Every program out there exports a different file type as there is no standard file format that everyone uses. Even textures are exported in different formats for every platform making some textures not look quite the same. On top of that the various platforms such as social media platforms to Google and Shopify all require different file types for 3D assets. This creates accessibility issues because not everyone can then view the files since they are all in different file formats and can then take hours to convert to the proper format costing time and money. One solution is using .glTF and .GLB files when exporting. These files are king as they are the most reliable for publishing and the most reliable from Browzwear and Clo. Teams need to get well defined exporting guidelines and processes. This is critical in scaling the use of 3D assets for sales. Another barrier is getting leadership to buy into 3D technology. Leadership focuses on sales. Getting leadership within the company to see how 3D sample replacement can save money and how 3D assets are increasing sales is a great way to get funded and get the strategies and workflows in place to create a seamless process from beginning to end.
Many times 3D assets are decentralized meaning they are spread out throughout the companies network and not stored in one central location.This can leave many in the company without the ability to visualize the asset or leave annotations or comments. Sharing files and comments through emails is slow and unproductive. This makes it nearly impossible to get 3D assets that are visually appealing and correct before it is moved to a digital showroom. What is the solution to this?
The Main Challenge is That 3D Files Are Too Large for Web and Ecommerce Use
Even after making sure your workflows and export guidelines are in place and getting an awesome CMS that is built for 3D one problem still remains: files sizes are just too large. This is the main problem that slows down the entire process and it is a costly problem at that. This directly impacts the sales environment and how quickly those 3D assets can be put into the digital showroom. There is a difference between having a 3D asset and one that can be used in digital showrooms, social media, ads and more. Everything from polygon counts to oversized textures can inflate the file size. This not only is inefficient but it increases loading time on webpages causing customers to get bored and possibly losing sales. Remember this when working with 3D web viewers. 3D web viewers are everywhere even Google has it built into their platform. This does nothing for your business when it takes such a long amount of time just to load the assets into the viewer. This can take seconds to minutes to load and you will lose buyers this way. 3D assets must also be in web ready formats such as .jlb. Getting these changes done by your team or by hiring someone outside of the company is costly and very time intensive. It can take someone who is incredibly skilled over 3 hours to convert the files into the proper format and optimize them. VNTANA has come up with a solution for this. We automatically optimize the files, including resizing and compressing textures, reducing 3D files sizes up to 99%!
Start By Using a 3D CMS Specifically Designed for 3D Assets and Workflow
VNTANA is one of the leaders in the industry looking to help solve this problem. We provide a place to centralize your 3D assets, making it easier to track files and creating a more cohesive work flow and that has all of the attributes you need to create amazing 3D assets. Metadata can also be pulled from previous files. Comments and annotations can be directly added to 3D models and then viewed just as easily. We are specifically designed for 3D assets from beginning to end allowing companies to take the next step and truly build out the digital showroom they desire for their assets. Some of the great things about this are: files are automatically optimized, locations can be added if the product is only in certain stores, any attributes about the product can be added as well as sku numbers.
How to Integrate 3D Into Your Digital Showroom
Once your 3D assets have been made and are ready for web and other platforms the next step is integrating the 3D assets into your fashion digital showroom. The main platforms most people are using to create digital platforms are Joor, Nu ORDER Virtual Showroom, Unreal Engine and Unity. iFrames are a great and easy way to drop your 3D products into your digital showroom. iFrames are 3D viewers and use the same process as embedding a video. Simply copy and paste the embed code and drop it in. With VNTANA we create the iFrames for you and they can be pulled directly from our platform into the digital showroom platforms. QR codes are another great way to integrate 3D into digital showrooms. They take the consumer or buyer directly to the product, allowing them to pull out their phone, scan the code and interact with the product. Plug-ins can also be used. VNTANA does have plug-ins for Unreal as well as Unity where your assets can be automatically loaded and transferred to the digital showroom. Lastly, you can also use a javascript component as a web viewer and can be installed directly onto the showrooms.
There are some great tools for digital showrooms as well.VibeIQ is built in Unreal Engine and is user friendly with outstanding quality. They allow 3D files to be directly dragged and dropped into digital showrooms taking out a lot of the complexity. There are simpler tools as well. In VNTANA’s CMS you can create a simplistic digital showroom very similar to a line review or line sheet. Here you can search assets and insert them into the digital showroom. From there you can share the url and embed it into the JOOR or Nu ORDER or even share through email with buyers, customers or your team. Another great tool is the different mannequins in different poses that can be utilized and are great for wholesale and b2b as well as the consumer side. Augmented reality try-on experiences can also be used as showrooms.
If 3D processes are done right from the beginning the sky’s the limit. Virtual try-ons can be done in AR with actual customers or buyers. With the right processes in place buyers can see your product in their own environment via QR code and get a sense of the product and actually get up close and see the details of the product.
VNTANA Can Help You Launch a 3D Digital Showroom in Hours, Not Weeks
VNTANA is the solution to these problems. We have strived to create a platform that can do it all from automatically optimizing files to helping create a digital showroom. One Platform, Every Channel, Fully Automated is our motto. We are committed to democratizing 3D and AR for everyone!
Contact one of our 3D experts to get started today!
