3D Integration on your website — saving a dime on a dollar

We wanted to buy a water filter for home. We already knew which one we were getting based on our friend’s recommendation and valid claims. Shopping online is a great experience for its convenience and ease of access. But what was missing was a real-life size comparison on our kitchen deck. Our kitchen is not too small but all the appliances that were already present challenged the real-estate usage of our soon-to-bought water filter. So, I bring the tape-measure checking the width, height and depth of remaining space. Good news was that it would fit just right. Mind that — it was all an approximation.

There were 2 color choices — white and a turquoise blue. The blue looked rich and fancy on the photos and we picked that. We tried to imagine how it would balance the palette on our kitchen. We have some blue accents in the apartment so it should have complimented the space. After it had arrived we had a bit of a shock — since the turquoise blue wasn’t looking very blue. It stepped well over into the territory of pale green. It could have been a manufacturing mistake, but being a designer and photographer—I knew that colors on studio set and lighting compared to real-life setup look very different. Quite upset with the outcome we decided to exchange it. The retailers were generous on their return policy so it wasn’t an issue. But as a business owner it got me thinking from their side. Firstly, it’s an oversized package. Shipping, then returning and then shipping again costs more than estimated overhead, plus the wait time and of course unnecessary carbon footprint.

What if there was a better way?

We are living in a time of AI and Extended Reality. Wasn’t it the promise of XR to enhance our experience of physical reality? A quick scan of our apartment and placement of a virtual copy the product could have simplified the whole process. I would not have to approximate the size of the water filter nor we would have been fooled by its color fit in our kitchen. Then why aren’t we doing it yet?

I spoke to several marketing & business development professionals on this regard. Based on my conversations, I think it’s because of the lack of initiative rather than lack of access. Facebook has enabled 3D model uploads for a long time now. Amazon gives you the ability to showcase your products in 3D. Google offers the same. Major Chinese e-commerce platforms are doing so as well.

Then comes to your own e-commerce shops. Integrating 3D models on your website isn’t all that difficult. Of course, you will need the technical know-how of it, plus how to best model your 3D products with materials and textures. This is where we come in. We invested much time and effort to find out what would be the easiest way for our clients to have their products viewable in 3D and use it in AR.

Being able to use AR technology right off your browser was a major breakthrough. Now that devices like Apple Vision Pro is slowly becoming the norm, it is only fair to say more and more people will look at your website in virtual spaces, away from the computer screens. Smartphones are basically a second-self now. The power and convenience that it brings is unmatched with any previous carriable inventions. Yet when your customers are looking at your products under their thumbs, the small images do not do justice to show the amount of R&D that has gone behind it. So, let’s put it in front of them in the virtual space with its physical domain and attributes. And all of this without making an app from scratch. That sounds all good, but — 

Is it really worth it?

Business owners and brands are bound to question on ROI before making a purchase decision. At least, I get that a lot during initial conversations. Trends come in — sometimes it sticks, sometimes it vanishes. Then ones that stick become a norm. Remember the time when they started attaching cameras on phones? It is a norm now. If you look at what’s trending in AR technology and the devices that are being introduced in mass market this might be just the next norm. I see many posts and conversations on LinkedIn about 3D product visualization. There is a slow uproar that is driving towards an imminent breakthrough. Brands like Ikea has been offering AR to their customers for setting up virtual furnishing for visualization for some time now. Fashion & retail brands have had us entertained with many AR experiences thus far. So, having an AR integrated website is not only a useful tool but also an entertaining feature to say the least.

Furthermore, content creation software like Adobe After Effects natively supports 3D files. This can massively simplify your content creation pipeline. Are you in a beautiful space and wish you had your product with you to take a shot? Well, bring out your phone scan the space, drop in your virtual product and take a shot. Add your promotional copy and now you have a flyer for your post. Results? Cutting down on photoshoots for every promotional post that you have to make and speeding up the content creation pipeline. Do you attend a lot of events, shows or marketplaces? Do you need to carry a whole lot of items for a day or few days? How about scaling down on the physical products and scaling up on the virtual representations? That should cut down some cost dramatically. Remember the time we had to return our water filter? We could have taken a photo with the product and get a full vision of the kitchen to make our purchase easier, save some money and hassle for the retailer, and also some carbon footprint. If you are selling at scale and add the 2’s and 2’s, you’ll probably be saving a good sum of money. And this is exactly what I am telling our clients. Long term ROI for a trend that just might be the next norm.

Final thoughts

It took quite some time for us to come up with a seamless solution and put it into a package for our clients. We figured out that providing our clients with a ready-to-go working webpage with their products on it is the best way to move forward. Of course, you can integrate the 3D models directly on to your websites. But if you are unsure of how it might turn out, or if your IT department is like a puzzle you never really had time to solve — getting a working webpage that you can easily link on your current website is probably the best solution. Besides, you don’t necessarily need to go big at one shot — try it out with your cash cow. See how your customers feel about the integration of 3D into your website. Nonetheless, we are happy to listen to your needs and that will help us improve our product as well.