E-commerce
Product visuals are the enabler of e-commerce trends
Advancements in technology take advantage of CGI/ 3D visualization, which can greatly reduce the production costs and time, while generating unlimited visuals to attract customers and convert to sales.
March 29, 2022 by Alexandre de Vigan — Founder and CEO, nfinite
"By 2040, around 95% of all purchases are expected to be via e-commerce." This Nasdaq data was from 2017, before Covid could propel the trajectory of e-commerce adoption worldwide. As a result, brands and retailers are all fighting for the attention of consumers, where according to a survey by Field Agent, an eye-popping 83% of shoppers consider the product image to be the most crucial trigger in their buying decision.
Several trends have been identified by various surveys and blogs to indicate where the industry has been heading for a while now: influencers, omnichannel, visual marketing, visual search, social marketing, virtual assistance (chatbot), AI & Big Data, hyper personalization, payments, among many others.
By taking a closer look, it is not a coincidence that "visual content" is a key element within some of the trends just mentioned.
Omnichannel
According to Shopify, almost three-quarters (73%) of consumers use multiple channels before buying. Today's shoppers jump between the vendor's website, social media pages, online retailers, even physical stores and compare similar items (more and more of them using visual search engines). The way to really connect with the audience is through a consistent story. And quite often, there needs to be variations in visual creativity over the lifetime of a particular product. This results in an infinite demand for creative product visuals that need to adapt to different platforms and yet send the same message.
With 3D visualization, businesses can update, refresh, and adapt product photos for infinitely personalized and dynamic customer experiences. But this can be quite challenging for retailers because it can take up to 10 weeks to organize a quality photoshoot, which can be valuable marking time lost. In addition, businesses can even customize and modify images to improve A/B testing.
Visual search
It uses artificial intelligence to help people search for items using real-world imagery as opposed to a text search. Many of the largest players have already added this feature and are promoting it with fervor: Google, Pinterest, Instagram, Amazon, and Microsoft. It is easy to understand why, when according to Media Planet, 62% of millennials and Generation Z would rather have visual search than any other search technology.
What can business owners do? It is essential to optimize the vendor's product images. Creating a library of 3D models of product visuals can make the processing of images easier for search engines and allows them to choose the business' photo to display in consumer's search results. These 3D models can also be easily optimized for both desktop and mobile.
Hyper Personalization + AI & Big Data
Hyper-personalization is using AI algorithms to gather and to analyze user data on behavior, preferences, and reactions to various marketing tactics. AI presents to target customers timely and relevant product or search recommendations, boosting conversion rates. Analytics also considers indicators such as geographies and demographics.
Product visuals are one of the best opportunities to learn about customers. Businesses can test which visuals engage customers, leading to best shopping-cart placement rates. With CGI and 3D visualization, businesses can customize and modify images to improve A/B testing. They can also test which visuals engage customers the best, easily adapting color, style, and products in visuals to trigger more purchases.
Metaverse
Though still in its infancy, the metaverse is the future of online commerce. It is a 3D virtual universe where people will shop for and purchase products in entirely new ways. To succeed in the metaverse, it is critical for retailers to replace traditional product photography with computer-generated imagery and 3D-rendering technology. This is how brands and retailers can start to create high-quality 3D product visuals that are infinitely changeable and always shoppable.
It is quite clear that product visuals are essential to catching up to key e-commerce trends. The integration of those trends demand an ever-growing number of creative product visuals. It is only achievable by ditching the old ways of producing product visuals and moving on to new technologies. Advancements in technology take advantage of CGI/ 3D visualization, which can greatly reduce the production costs and time, while generating unlimited visuals to attract customers and convert to sales.
Alexandre de Vigan is CEO of nfinite
About Alexandre de Vigan
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