While 3D eCommerce may seem like future tech, it’s already making waves regularly on the web. In July 2020, Chevrolet launched the Corvette Visualizer that let customers create their own 2021 Corvette Stingray, with almost 152,000 hours being spent on the visualizer alone before August even started.
But how can manufacturers and other B2B companies utilize this strategy to better their buying experience?
B2B Buyers Expect a B2C Online Shopping Experience
As of December 2019, there were around 112 million Amazon Prime subscriptions. Let’s face it—buyers are expecting the same Amazon Prime experience elsewhere, and that includes their B2B eCommerce buying experience too.
But unfortunately, the business buying experience is slow moving and lacks confidence. While some B2B eCommerce websites can showcase their products and features well, buyers are still expected to go through lengthy sales cycles that could become longer and more complicated the more customized their purchase.
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And these lengthy sales cycles also leave buyers feeling uneasy and anxious about what they’re purchasing. According to Gartner, B2B customers are lacking in confidence in themselves to make large-scale purchasing decisions. Not only are customers unlikely to make large purchases if they aren’t confident in what they’re getting, but they also struggle to make sense of all the high specialized content around the product they’re buying. Because of this friction, buyers are more likely to make smaller, less intrusive decisions.
So how does 3D eCommerce make the B2B buyer experience better?
1. 3D eCommerce Shortens the Sales Cycle
Traditionally, the B2B buyer experience is a long one. With the event of more eCommerce strategies making their way into B2B sales, that experience has shortened. Unfortunately, buyers are still expected to fill out a form on a website just to access a demo or other critical information and tools when making large purchasing decisions.
With a strategy centered around 3D eCommerce, the B2B buyer experience is drastically transformed from one of frequent calls and complicated diagrams to self-sufficiency and immediate and dynamic visuals.
By implementing a 3D visual configurator on your website, all necessary information is captured up-front, eliminating communication breakdowns between the customer, sales, and engineering. A process that used to take 20+ calls and emails now takes just one.
Plus, that same 3D visual configurator streamlines the quote process for the most complex and customizable products. This means fewer mistakes, less rework, lower return rates, and increased customer satisfaction.
2. 3D eCommerce Instills Buyer Confidence and Reduces Anxiety
Because the buyer can customize their purchase and see price differences in real-time with dynamic 3D visualization, they will feel more confident knowing they’ll be getting exactly what they see.
This 3D eCommerce strategy also breaks away the complicated education given to buyers that deflates their confidence around their ability to make large buying decisions. A 3D visual configurator acts as buyer enablement, effectively helping buyers take ownership of their selections and relate to your products on a deeper, more emotional level. This means they feel more confident picking up the phone or clicking “Add to Cart”.
3. 3D eCommerce Increases Efficiency Behind the Scenes
A 3D visual not only allows the buyer to be confident in their purchase, but it also allows your sales team to know exactly how to sell and build a quote without constantly consulting with your engineering team. The logic and rules built into the backend of the 3D product configurator prevent human error and technically non-viable selections.
Plus, a wide range of documents from quote and proposal PDFs right up to BOMs and CNC cutting data can be generated, allowing deals to be completed quickly. This means your sales team can eliminate unnecessary calls and meetings, making a better more efficient experience for the buyer.
So how does 3D eCommerce work in practice?
A robust 3D visual configurator is the only option for a better buying experience in 2020 and beyond
Humans are inherently visual creatures. A whopping 65% of the population are visual learners with online users in general only ever reading 20% of the text on a webpage on average. This makes visuals so much more crucial to the buying experience.
Implementing a robust 3D visualizer on your webpage or via your CPQ platform is the only way to bring true 3D eCommerce to your virtual sales strategy.
A 3D visual configurator is a dynamic and robust visual tool that can be accessed via a web browser that allows buyers to see the product from all angles and can even customize the product through a wide variety of options. More technically advanced configurators allow buyers to interact directly with the 3D images—they can open a door, “use” a piece of animated machinery, or drag and drop components into predefined locations.
3D eCommerce means better experience for your buyers and bottom line
This meant that their sales team was able to make more money, while their buyers were able to get through the buying experience faster and with less stress.
By implementing a 3D eCommerce strategy, your buyers will have the ability to quickly traverse the sales cycle and gain confidence in their ability to make large purchasing decisions. Plus your sales team won’t be bogged down with calls back and forth to engineering, trying to tidy up the buyer’s configurations behind the scenes. All-in-all, 3D eCommerce is the next wave of B2B eCommerce.
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