The increase in online competition due to COVID19 has made the ecommerce space more competitive than ever. This has forced e-retailers to try out new and innovative ways to motivate and entice customers to buy their products and services.
Enter: Visual configuration software.
For any business that’s operating in the ecommerce space, the goal is to go above and beyond expectations when it comes to delivering a stellar customer experience. This has led to many online retailers, from large giants such as Amazon and Etsy, to an increasing number of small self-owned or Mom and Pops, to start leveraging visual product configurators or visual CPQ to attract and engage their customers.
This has also led to an emergence of companies offering visual configuration tools to enhance the ecommerce experience. Sadly, not all of these companies are created equal. When choosing a visual configuration tool, it is crucial to explore what the company and the tool itself has to offer.
Turns Buyers into Creators
Gone are the days when online customers bought items at face value. What the ever-demanding customers of today are looking for is more control while shopping online. While ecommerce retailers have traditionally provided this by offering a large inventory of products and multiple payment options, the visual configuration tool is the new kid on the block for ecommerce stores.
The use of visual configuration tools allows customers to find the exact product they want to buy. This means the customer gets to change various elements of the product’s image, such as its color, size and various other features, depending on the specific product being purchased. The visual configuration tool you select to support your e-commerce products to make them customizable, needs to do all of this and much more.
Quoting on the Fly
While on a shopping spree on one of the many online retailers, you may have noticed the price of a product changing along with your choice of color, size, function etc. This is a feature known as dynamic pricing and allows visitors to get product quotes on the fly as they select customizable product features.
Says More than Traditional Product Imagery Ever Could
The use of visual CPQ has become essential for online retailers offering apparel, gadgets or any number of customizable products. While in the B2C space, the use of visual configuration tools allows customers themselves to make changes to get the final product, in B2B settings, the salespeople are able to walk clients through the configuration process as they input their choices.
The versatility of visual configuration tools means it can be used for various industries, which include apparel, footwear, automobile, gadgets, interior design, industrial machinery, construction, and much more.
Pricing
The price is always going to be a big factor when choosing anything business-related, and selecting the visual configuration tool you use is no exception. Since the visual configuration tool is used to customize and visualize products while purchasing online, the cost of the visual CPQ will mainly depend on the level of visual configuration you’re looking for.
For instance, providing a visual product configurator tool that allows customers to customize a pre-fabricated building, configuring not only the size, but the roof pitch as well as adding doors and windows where desired. Customers can also select additional visual customizations such as materials, colors and textures in real time with product configurator. The price for visual configurators that allow this level of customizations will vary, depending on whether you choose a 2D configurator or interactive 3D visual configurator.
It goes without saying that choosing a company that offers an affordable visual configuration tool, along with great customer service and support, will ensure that you’ll get the best bang for your buck.
Ending Note
The wild popularity of online purchases has resulted in ecommerce giants such as Amazon breaking all past records in ecommerce sales. That’s underlined by research carried out by Shopify Plus, which estimates that worldwide ecommerce sales will hit $4.9 trillion by the year 2021. In a sea of mass-produced products, it pays to make sure that the products within your ecommerce store are able to stand out from the crowd.
While online shopping has skyrocketed and will continue to grow, the lack of touch-and-feel experience can be solved with the clever use of visual configuration tools that are designed to enhance the ecommerce experience.
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