3D Visual Merchandising For Outdoor Furniture Players

Summer is coming and everyone is looking forward to spending time outside. As most of us stay home, people may think about renewing their outdoor furniture set: sofas, chairs, tables, inflatable furniture... Outdoor furniture manufacturers and retailers may have to expect a boost in their sales in the coming weeks. Though, competition is still there! This will surely be the case for mobile and e-commerce outdoor furniture players.

For online manufacturers and retailers, it is always a challenge to stand up from their competitors and catch potential buyers' attention. Quality visual content seems to be a key element to attract more and more customers, increase the conversion rate and average basket, and build up sales. Indeed, it is always difficult to buy something online you can't see for real!

Thus, it is time to rethink your visual merchandising strategy! A short definition of this concept is shown below:

VISUAL MERCHANDISING: Practice in the retail industry of developing floor plans and three-dimensional displays in order to maximize sales. The purpose of such visual merchandising is to attract, engage, and motivate the customer towards making a purchase.

Source: Wikipedia

Many advanced technologies can help you reach your visual merchandising goals such as Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality (more info here), though I would like to focus on a simple one: 3D Rendering.

3D RENDERING: 3D computer graphics process of converting 3D models into 2D images on a computer. 3D renders may include photorealistic effects or non-photorealistic styles.

Source: Wikipedia

Basically, instead of taking pictures of your sun lounger (that requires time, money and professional expertise), you use 3D modelling to generate photo-realistic images. Although it requires an upfront investment (creating 3D models of your catalogue's products), 3D rendering has many advantages:

• Value for money: For the same photo-shooting budget, you get more images!
• Unlimited: Once you've built your 3D models, you can change colors, modules or decoration styles as many times as you want!
• Dynamic & Customizable: Manage your assets to display your content on your website, social media, catalogue as you wish!

For more information about 3D Visual Merchandising, you can watch Hubstairs videos on YouTube: Visual Merchandising Solution, Portal.

3D MODEL: A spatial representation of your product resulting of the combination of the mesh (structure), the textures (colors, surfaces, etc.) and the shader (mathematical models). To build a 3D model, modellers, graphic designers and architects use 3D softwares such as DS Max, Maya, Blender, etc. Common formats for exchanging 3D files are .max, .obj, .fbx, .gltf, .usdz, etc.

Source: 3D Virtual Market

PACKSHOT: An image of your product on a white, transparent or colored background. The format is mainly .jpg and .png.

Source: The Fillup Club

Once you've built the 3D model of your product, it's easy to generate colour variations!

Source: The Fillup Club

INSPIRATIONAL SCENE: A photo-realistic image including one or several 3D models where light and shade are taking into account. Usually, the 3D rendering is delivered on .jpg, .png, .pdf or .tiff formats.

Source: The Fillup Club

For more information about The Fillup Club, please contact the cofounders Kenny PACKO and Lode IVENS. You can also check out their webshop!

Alexandre PERSON, Sales at Hubstairs

Released on April 22, 2020