How To Implement Sales Configurators: Best Practices To Succeed

In eCommerce, especially when selling made-to-order products, too many variants and combinations can confuse buyers and make parties drown in tedious back-and-forth. That’s when you need 3D product configurators so that you can flip that script, turning chaos into a profitable ride. These visualization tools let buyers freely interact with their own designs in 360 degrees, making them feel more trustful before making decisions. 

Ready to learn tips and tricks to make it happen effectively? Below are the 10 best practices that help you level up your 3D sales configurator performance to drive sales. 

#1. Team structure

You need a cross-functional team that includes designers, developers, marketers, and sales representatives. Each member is responsible for a distinctive task, bringing unique, consistent expertise to your interactive 3D sales configurator. For example, designers for flair, developers for function, marketers for buzz, and sales pros for real-world smarts! This can bring more accurate and immersive 3D sales configuration software to users. 

#2. High-quality visuals

Customers often struggle to visualize complex/ tailor-to-order products, leading to hesitation and uncertainty. Additionally, traditional 2D images or static rendering fail to convey the product’s true look, leading to lower interest and lost business revenues. Thus, ensuring immersive 3D visualizations in custom 3D sales configurators is important. 

It is recommended that you invest in photorealistic rendering and detailed 3D rendering. You should also have textures and lighting optimized for each variant and combination, which is effective in engaging buyers and boosting sales with 3D product configurators. 

#3. Platform selection

A clunky platform can limit your 3D product configurator’s reach. If it’s desktop—only or hard to navigate, mobile users and in-store buyers might become unsatisfied. Apparently, this potentially causes frustrated customers to abandon their ship and a drop in sales. 

Instead, depending on your business goals and demands, consider a proper platform for your 3D sales customization software. Whatever platform is selected—a web-based tool, in-store kiosk, or mobile app—it should be all optimized with a friendly user interface. This is not just convenience to access; it’s how you widen your net and win in the market. 

#4. Integration 

Traditional processes cause sellers and buyers to have a disjointed shopping experience because there is a lack of connection between business systems and sales configurators. All activities demand separate performance, leading to inefficiencies, delays, and errors. 

On the other hand, when a 3D sales configurator can work well with your existing eCommerce platform, CRM, and ERP systems, you can easily streamline your workflow. This is because all relevant data, such as inventory, customer details, and order history, are transformed automatically and accurately, reducing manual data entry and errors. 

#5. Configurator logic

Sellers often find challenges in complicated product configurations where random combinations from customers’ customization result in incompatibility in finalized designs. As a result, sellers might risk offering invalid options, leading to customer confusion, damaging customer trust, and increasing manufacturing and operational costs. 

A rule-based 3D sales configurator can help build product logic and ensure valid and compatible product combinations are shown. This is especially critical in designing high-end furniture, like modular sofas, where certain features depend heavily on others. 

#6. Dynamic pricing

The lack of real-time pricing updates during your 3D product customization might lead to customer frustration and mistrust when unexpected costs arise at checkout. This is one of the common reasons that make customers feel dissatisfied and abandon their carts. Therefore, a good 3D product configurator should begin with a dynamic pricing system. 

Customers know exactly what they’re paying for their product choices in real time. Notably, you can leverage the power of Visual Configure, Price, Quote (Visual CPQ) as an advanced dynamic pricing solution. It can provide true-to-life configurated products, generate respective prices, and ensure error-free quotes—an all-in-one visualization tool. 

#7. Testing and optimization

Test your web-based 3D sales configurator on different devices and browsers to ensure it works perfectly before you launch it on your online store. This will allow you to fix bugs, optimize load times, and provide seamless transitions for each change. Remember to have regular updates and performance monitoring to maintain a stable user experience. 

#8. Multi-Channel optimization 

About 73% of retail consumers shop online across devices and platforms. If your 3D sales visualization tool isn’t optimized for these channels, it can be unusable to interact with. The final configuration might also show slow loading times and broken features.  

On the other hand, owning a responsive 3D sales configurator ensures seamless functionality, with a strong adaption to different screen sizes for a consistent experience. This enhances user satisfaction and trust, reducing friction and increasing engagement. 

#9. Address rendering complexities

Rendering is often used in complex 3D products and is key to finalizing visualizations. However, avoid overloading your sales configurator with unnecessary rendering techniques. Instead, carefully choose the best fit that aligns with your business demands. 

Today, real-time rendering and cloud solutions are popular for your 3D product configurator. While real-time rendering ensures instant user experiences, cloud-based rendering easily offers scalability and accessibility from remote servers. Both help save much more time and effort compared to building traditional renderings. 

#10. Analytics and user feedback

Last but not least, use data-driven insights collected from your 3D sales configurator and other analytics tools. All of these solutions are designed to track user behavior and 3D eCommerce trends. From that, we can see how customers use the configurator and then make proper adjustments if needed. This way, we stay ahead in the eCommerce market.

Conclusion

Our blog has just listed the 10 best practices to help sellers ensure the successful implementation of sales configurators. Adopting these strategies flexibly can boost customer engagement with immersive 3D visualizations and increase business sales. 

Experience the power of 3D product configurators with a free demo from VividWorks and see exactly how they can level up your online presence and performance.