As COVID-19 spread across the world, people were forced to stay inside their homes to help prevent the spread of the contagion. As a result, many individuals found themselves utilizing the internet much more for shopping. People have become more acclimated with online e-commerce to a point where it’s become a preferred form of shopping. We’ll focus on how businesses can tap into this heightened desire for web shopping and how best to apply product configuration software to their e-commerce stores.
Defining Product Configuration
When you’re shopping on a website for items, you want an easy-to-use experience. As a customer, you don’t want to spend a lot of time seeking out items. If this occurs, the customer experience becomes a bit complicated, as a shopper must wade through endless web pages to find what they are looking for. Product configurator software helps to ease this pain. When it comes to a business, a product configurator (or configuration software) helps a business in selecting options for a product to meet the individual needs of their customers. The best product configurator helps to automate the process by speeding up the quoted timeline and getting an item into production. Further, configurators use a wide variety of rules and logic to help guide users through this process. Another reward when it comes to a product configurator is that during the sales process or purchasing process, the system provides an e-commerce shopper with real-time product visualization. This helps shoppers to see how their configuration appears as they sift through their options. For example, let’s say a customer is attempting to purchase a custom pair of Nike athletic shoes. Using the proper product configurator tool can help a customer to see their custom changes as they’re making a purchase. A customization tool such as this comes in handy for many e-commerce stores.
E-Commerce
E-commerce has benefited in a huge way from product configuration. When applied together, e-commerce configuration acts as an interactive software that helps online shoppers to customize their products. This is based on certain available configuration options such as color, size, text, image, and even texture. As mentioned before with the customizing of a pair of Nike shoes, a customer can customize an item with whatever accessories are available. When you’re building this type of online product configurator, you’ll need to follow a few steps. First, add a static 2D function to your e-commerce configuration. These static 2D product configurators help demonstrate a flat and static visualization of online products. Online product configurators help shoppers to switch various customizable elements. Another piece of product configurator software that can be built for your e-commerce store is an interactive 3D function. This tool helps shoppers to get a 360-degree view with a three-dimensional rendering of the product from different angles. This is a popular product visual option for shoppers who want to see the product from many angles. The last online product configurator tool that can be built into an e-commerce framework is augmented reality (AR). Some consider this to be the best product configurator tool available in an e-commerce arsenal. With AR, a shopper can view and experience digital objects through their smartphones or tablets. AR makes use of a real-world setting, allowing you to see how the item or products might appear in real life. These tools are great ways to maximize the potential of product configurator software for your e-commerce website.
E-Commerce Configurator Practices
When building your product configurator software for e-commerce, there are a set of best practices to follow to ensure your success. Try to make things simple — your goal is to have shoppers purchase items from your web store. Make sure to make the configuration process for customers as simple as possible. This will ensure repeat visits from your clients. Make sure that all the steps of the product configuration process are displayed. Lastly, do your best to offer a variety of options when it comes to product configuration. Follow these practices to successfully apply the arenas of e-commerce and online product configuration.