A process of making a buying choice is not so much different whether we do it online or in real store. With one exception.
When we, as buyers, have a need, we collect information how we can satisfy the need, we select couple of potential options, we evaluate them and we try to convince ourselves, that the choice we are about to make, is the best one. Whether shopping online or in store, we can use the same online tools to search for price, features and opinions. (How to reduce returns in e-commerce) After we gather enough information, we start to analyse and compare features, design, look, economy and other aspects of our choices. We initiate a fight between our rationality and emotions, between what we really need and what we actually want. We need help!
In the real shop, we can take a closer look at the product, touch it, try it, feel it: we can interact and enter emotional relationship with it. This makes it easier for us to make a decision and for store to make money. If we hesitate, the real stores have another great weapon to nail the sale down: a trained salesman. Presenting the product and showing it’s features, he will narrow pre-chosen options and convince us that the choice we want is the choice we need. This is why, a real sales person can close much higher percentage of potential deals, with higher average value, than e-commerce web site.
The key elements missing, while shopping online, are the interactions with the product and sales person. Missing this, leads to abandoned baskets, lower conversion and higher returns. There is no real online substitute for the real interactions. You cannot transfer touch, smell or feeling of your product over distance, nor let your customers try it. Although it is not cost effective, you can place real people at the phone for 24h a day, but even though, they will not see hesitating customers in your e-store to help convince those who really need it.
What you can do though, is to limit the gap as much as you can. As in reality, your e-shoppers first look through your offer and select potential choices. Once they chose several product they try to evaluate, if this is what they need. At this point you can offer them a better interaction with your products: high quality images, 360 degree view and video. As a substitute of real salesman you can offer a product tour – an interactive guide combining 360 images with still life photos, presenting unique features of the product.
Not a long time ago, to create a product tour was way too expensive to be used in e-commerce. With latest technology advancements things got really fast and easy. Using our ALPHASHOT range of automated photo studios, you can produce video, still and 360 product photos in just minutes. ORBITTOUR – allows you to create great, interactive product presentations and enrich your 360 images with detailed views, hotspots, additional images and textual descriptions. Your e-shoppers interacting with the product are getting the right information at the right moment, which helps them to make the last step and close the sale in YOUR e-store.
More about our automated product photography solutions
To see how easy is to create ORBITTOUR yourself, go to our imaging cloud: https://orbitvu.co and setup a demo account.