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Shopware 6 – Virtual Commerce

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How do you stand out from thousands of online stores? Remember the good old days when you had to buy a piece of furniture and haul it home just to see if it fit? Those days are gone. The era of digital showrooms has arrived. 

Nowadays, customers want more than just plain product photos. Thanks to virtual reality technology, you can now create a replica of your room right on your computer screen and “try on” any piece of furniture. It’s super convenient and modern, and it helps reduce the chances of buying the wrong thing.

Welcome Shopware 6, a tool for turning your online store into a virtual showroom. With 3D modeling, augmented reality, and other innovative solutions, you can create unique shopping experiences that your customers will remember. 

What is Virtual Commerce?

Before exploring Shopware 6’s functionalities, let’s consider how 3D, AR, and VR generally transform online shopping. Virtual commerce, also known as vCommerce, spatial commerce, or visual commerce, is a new innovative frontier in eCommerce.

Virtual Commerce

It mixes together advanced technologies like 3D Visualization, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) to give shoppers immersive experiences. Instead of just looking at images and reading descriptions, customers can interact with products in a virtual space, viewing them in 3D or even placing them in their real-world environment using AR. This approach not only enhances the shopping experience but also boosts customer confidence, provides a deeper understanding of product features and benefits, and reduces return rates.

7 Benefits of Virtual Commerce for eCommerce Stores

1. Best Customer Experience 

Virtual commerce offers an immersive shopping experience, making customers feel like they are interacting with products in person.

2. Better Visualization

Customers can visualize products in their own environment, reducing the risk of purchasing items that don’t meet their expectations.

3. Reduced Return Rates

Providing better product visualization minimizes returns.

4. Increased Conversions

Virtual commerce leads to higher conversion rates through personalized recommendations and interactive experiences.

5. Upselling and Cross-Selling

Virtual commerce allows businesses to upsell related or complementary products to increase the average order value.

6. Improved Brand Image

These technologies make your e-commerce store stand out as innovative and forward-thinking, setting it apart from competitors.

7. Get Global Market

With virtual commerce, you can reach customers worldwide without having physical stores, expanding your market potential.

Online Shopping with 3D, AR, and VR Technology

With the integration of 3D, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) technologies into online shopping, trying on a pair of shoes without leaving home is now possible.

3D Visualization

By offering intricate 3D models of products, online shoppers can inspect them from every angle, zoom in on specific details, and develop a clearer understanding of their size, shape, and texture. It’s akin to holding a physical product in your hands without the inconvenience of visiting a store.

Store 3D Visualization

Augmented Reality

AR technology enhances the real world with digital information, allowing customers to envision how products would fit into their lives. It’s like having a personal stylist right at your fingertips.

Virtual Reality

VR technology offers fully immersive experiences that can transport customers to virtual showrooms or product demonstrations. It allows users to feel as if they are physically present in a store while also providing the advantage of exploring products from anywhere in the world.

Combine these technologies to offer customers a richer, more interactive, and highly personalized shopping experience beyond conventional eCommerce.

Shopware 6 – A Virtual Commerce Capabilities 

Shopware 6 is an advanced eCommerce platform that enables businesses to build compelling and interactive online shopping experiences. It leverages 3D, AR, and VR technologies to help businesses provide customers with a more lifelike and engaging way to view and interact with products, ultimately leading to higher customer engagement and conversion rates. To enhance your Shopware 6 experience and tailor it precisely to your unique requirements, consider collaborating with expert plugin developers.

3D Product Visualization and Shopware 6

Shopware 6 has an excellent feature: 3D product visualization. It lets customers play with 3D models by rotating, zooming, and viewing the product from different angles. This makes the shopping experience more fun and engaging than just looking at 2D images. With Shopware 3D konfigurator, you also get high-quality 3D renderings that keep all the little details sharp when you zoom in. This is super handy for products with intricate designs, like electronics, furniture, or fashion items. Businesses can even offer customizable 3D models, letting customers personalize products by picking different colors, materials, or configurations. For example, you could change the color of a sofa or the finish of a piece of jewelry and see the changes immediately. Plus, the 3D models work great on the web – they load fast and perform smoothly on all kinds of devices and browsers. That’s especially important for a seamless user experience, especially on mobile.

3D Product Visualization

Shopware 6’s AR capabilities

AR technology empowers customers to preview products in their physical space before purchasing. Shopware 6 equips businesses with the seamless tools to integrate AR functionalities into their websites effortlessly. This encompasses the capability to upload AR-ready 3D models and seamlessly integrate them with product pages, granting customers immediate access to AR features with minimal effort. The AR experience within Shopware 6 is meticulously crafted to deliver a user-friendly interface with intuitive controls that facilitate effortless interaction with products within their environment. This guarantees that even customers unfamiliar with AR technology can readily harness its full potential.

Shopware 6 AR capabilities

Virtual Reality Shopware Capabilities

Shopware 6 has built-in support for VR technology, allowing businesses to create virtual showrooms and interactive shopping experiences beyond traditional online stores’ capabilities. With Shopware 6, companies can create complete virtual showrooms where customers can explore products as if they were physically present in a store. This is especially beneficial for luxury brands or businesses selling complex products that require detailed exploration. In a VR environment, customers can walk around products, closely inspect them, and interact with them in impossible ways on a standard website. This level of immersion significantly enhances the shopping experience, making it more memorable and engaging. Furthermore, with VR support, Shopware 6’s VR capabilities are designed to work across various devices, including VR headsets, desktops, and mobile devices, ensuring broad accessibility across different technologies.

Digital Sales Rooms

Shopware 6 not only offers 3D, AR, and VR capabilities but also provides Digital Sales Rooms—a cutting-edge feature that seamlessly merges virtual commerce with personalized customer service. These customized virtual spaces deliver a unique shopping experience for each individual customer and integrate flawlessly with the rest of the Shopware 6 platform. This enables businesses to effectively manage these virtual spaces alongside their traditional eCommerce operations and ensures a cohesive brand experience across all customer touchpoints.

Shopware Digital Sales Rooms

Visual Commerce Tools

Shopware 6 features an impressive array of visual commerce tools that elevate the presentation of products for customers. Its key attributes include:

  • Support for high-resolution images and advanced image processing techniques, ensuring that product visuals are sharp, detailed, and visually appealing. This is crucial for leaving a solid first impression and capturing customers’ attention.
  • The inclusion of 3D configurators that enable customers to build and customize products in real-time. For instance, a customer purchasing a car can select different colors, wheels, and interior options and witness immediate changes in a 3D model.
  • Provision of interactive product viewers that surpass standard image galleries. Customers can deeply explore products, zoom in on specific features, and view them in varied contexts or settings.
  • For businesses seeking to provide AR previews without complete AR integration, Shopware 6 incorporates tools for crafting augmented previews, allowing customers to visualize how a product might appear in a simple AR overlay.

3D Block Viewer: How to Use

The 3D Block Viewer in Shopware 6 is a powerful pro tool that allows customers to visualize products in a three-dimensional environment, providing a more immersive and informative shopping experience. In this quick tutorial, we will demonstrate how Shopware 6 improves the shopping experience.

Please note: This feature is available from the commercial Plan Rise onwards.

Ready to get started? You can use the visual page builder to easily place blocks with 3D elements and showcase them in any layout you like.

You can easily add 3D elements by simply dragging and dropping them, just like with other blocks. After that, you can also include an image file. Just make sure it’s a 3D image file in .glb format*. And click on the button ‘Done’.

*The .glb file is a binary format commonly used to exchange 3D models. It is based on the Graphics Library Transmission Format.

3D Block Viewer

All set! Now, head to your store’s product page to check out the 3D format. This will allow customers to interact with the 3D model.

3D Block Viewer Shopware

To sum up

Shopware 6 is more than just an eCommerce platform. By harnessing the power of 3D, Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), Shopware 6 empowers you to create immersive and engaging experiences that leave a lasting impression on customers.

The Benefits of Virtual Commerce:

  • 3D models provide a crystal-clear view of products, eliminating the guesswork and reducing returns.
  • AR and VR transport customers into virtual worlds, making shopping feel more like a fun adventure than a chore.
  • Customers can customize products and see how they’d look in their own space, creating a truly personalized experience.
  • Virtual commerce keeps customers hooked, leading to longer session times and higher conversion rates.

Ready to Dive In?

If you want to give your online store a futuristic makeover, Shopware 6 and virtual commerce are the perfect tools. Contact your Reliable Shopware partner today to learn how we can help you leap into this exciting new world of online shopping.

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