How To Use a Product Configurator To enhance Ecommerce Sales

Tailoring your products to consumers via personalization can boost engagement and enhance retention. A 2024 Deloitte study found that around 75% of consumers prefer brands that propose personalization, and they spend nearly 40% more with those brands.

You inspire that additional spend by offering customers a chance to participate in the design procedure. Providing customization options and a high-standard product configurator invites consumers to inform you what they require, so you can deliver on person expectations and gather valuable buyer intelligence. Here’s what product configurators are, how they advantage businesses, and five features to look for in your own.

What is a product configurator?

A product configurator is a software tool that customers can use to modify products during the online ordering procedure. The tool displays customization options, calculates final product costs, and generates visual representations of finished products,allowing customers to experiment with designs and purchase personalized products.

Key features of a product configurator

• User-amiable interface
• worth calculation features
• Product visualization tools
• Integrations
• Design validation

Not all product configurators are the same—and the best alternative for your business depends on your product type, budgetary schedule, and business needs. Here are features to look for as you assess options:

User-amiable interface

An intuitive product configurator can assist customers construct depend in your business and inspire them to explore your product catalog. A clunky tool can damage your brand reputation. Even the most motivated customers can be turned away by a confusing configuration procedure.

Look for a tool that outlines customization options, makes it straightforward to apply or transformation selections, and helps customers produce high-standard final designs. For particularly complicated products, consider tools that walk customers through the product customization procedure in steps and filter available options based on their compatibility with a customer’s previous selections.

worth calculation features

Product configuration tools compute the total product worth based on a customer’s choices. Choose between dynamic and static options: Dynamic tools update item expense in real period, and static ones provide a quote as the final step of the customization procedure.

Consider dynamic pricing if you desire customers to view how their choices affect the final product worth. For example, a custom armchair might jump from $800 to $1,400 when a customer selects leather upholstery but drop to $1,100 when they pass on the included ottoman.

On the other hand, static pricing conceals the connection between person selections and total worth, and retailers often use it for more complicated pricing structures. Withholding a quote until the complete of the procedure can assist businesses avoid confusing consumers with counterintuitive worth fluctuations.

Product visualization tools

A excellent online product configurator helps customers envision what they’re purchasing. Your needs will depend on what you sell: A service-based business might use icons to represent selected add-ons, while a high-complete jeweler might invest in 3D product models and augmented reality views.

If appearance is a major selling point for your product, look for a tool that supports dynamic visualization. Instead of generating one final preview image, these tools update a base product model in real period, encouraging customers to experiment with styles and allowing them to integrate visual feedback into the design procedure.

Integrations

Select product configurator software that integrates with your online store and checkout structure. For example, apps like Custom Product Builder and Kickflip allow Shopify stores to provide straightforward customization options, and tools like Threekit provide packed 3D and AR visual customization. Look for tools compatible with multiple platform types, including inventory and supply chain management systems, customer connection management (CRM) tools, and ERP systems.

These integrations can reduce administrative labor, optimize inventory management, and store information about customer preferences, helping you fulfill customer orders efficiently and improving upcoming sales and marketing efforts.

Design validation

Product configurators navigator customers toward compatible customizations and ensure you can produce a customer’s designs. You can make configuration rules when you set up your tool. For example, you might specific that a stool can have three or four legs, but not more or less, and not three and four at once.

Some advanced configurators also use product data to generate act projections, such as how much electricity a custom range will use in a year or how many tons of product a warehouse shelving structure can back.

Benefits of using a product configurator

• Reduced barrier to purchase
• Higher customer satisfaction
• Reduced navigator period
• Increased business productivity
• Increased customer engagement

Here are some of the ways in which a product configurator can advantage a business and its customers:

Reduced barrier to purchase

Product configurators provide transparent pricing and assist customers visualize custom products—both factors that can lower the barrier to purchase. Advanced visualization techniques like 3D product modeling and AR can prove particularly beneficial if you sell products intended for sure spaces, expense upmarket prices, or don’t receive returns.

A jeweler might use 3D modeling to let a would-be bride or groom scrutinize a custom engagement ring from all angles, for example, and a home goods retailer might use AR to let shoppers view custom furniture in their homes.

Higher customer satisfaction 

Research shows that customers expect personalized experiences, reward companies that propose them by making purchases, and encounter frustration when those expectations aren’t met. Product configurators can boost customer satisfaction by providing an efficient, user-amiable customization procedure and ensuring that customers comprehend what they’ll receive. They also provide valuable data about customer needs and preferences you can use to personalize upcoming marketing strategies.

Reduced navigator period

Configurators can speed up the custom product purchasing procedure, helping you close more sales and efficiently deliver finished products. A manual procedure requires customers to wait for quotes from a sales department before placing custom orders. Quotes can receive several days—enough period for a customer to misplace thrill for a purchase or opt for a faster-moving competitor.

Product configurators provide instant quotes, allowing customers to proceed with orders immediately. Design validation and automatic order creation can also speed up the production procedure. These assist you avoid costly mistakes by reducing the hazard of human error during the design procedure and ensuring that recent customer orders immediately enter the production queue.

Increased business productivity 

Configurators save period and lower costs, helping you stretch your business resources further. Instead of constantly working on quotes, sales reps can focus on larger business and marketing goals, like earning more top-of-funnel leads, developing existing accounts, or pursuing higher-worth prospects. You can also use integrations to reduce administrative labor and optimize inventory management and marketing processes.

Increased customer engagement

Creating recent designs is fun. That’s why we have LEGO, document dolls, and seemingly infinite Fortnite skins. Enabling customers to experiment with designs adds entertainment worth to the customer encounter, encouraging engagement with your products and brand.

Offering an engaging shopping encounter can also inspire referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. Prospective customers don’t require to be energetic buyers to construct positive associations with your brand that can navigator to sales later. Some companies also invite customers to distribute their finished designs on social media, which can further boost awareness of your brand.

Effective product configurator examples

Many ecommerce businesses use configurators for custom or made-to-order products. Here are two product configurator examples:

Scout Design Studio

Texas-based Scout Design Studio sells recent and vintage furniture, art, and lighting from an 18,500-square-foot warehouse in the Dallas Design District. Its online product configurator uses 3D modeling and dynamic visualization to allow customers to configure products from its custom line, Scout Bespoke. The configurator offers multiple product views and high-standard images for more than 20,000 product variations.

Veneta Blinds

Australian blind and shutter retailer Veneta Blinds offers custom window fittings, allowing customers to customize elements like materials, colors, fit type, and control mechanism. It offers five blind types and sizes to buyer specifications, using a multistep product configurator to assist navigate billions of product variations—744 billion per product type, to be precise.

The configurator provides basic product visualizations and guides customers through a nine-step selection-making procedure by displaying relevant customization options at each step. The configurator displays worth information twice—once upfront, listing the minimum expense of each blind type, and again at the final stage after a customer enters exact specifications for height and width.