Add 360º spin photography to increase conversion
People love to pick up physical products and spin them around to get a feel for what they’re buying
Thankfully, 360° spin imagery isn’t as complicated as it looks to produce and manage. You can automate the process from start to finish by producing your 360º photography in-house, or partner with Widen and Snap36, a 1WorldSync™ company. Either way, you can deliver a consistent 360° product experience that increases conversion rates, decreases return rates, and adds efficiencies to your content production.
What’s behind 360° product photography?
Each 360° spin experience is usually composed of a collection of 2D images — typically 24 to 96 JPEGS. These collections of images are called “spinsets” and are typically managed as ZIP archives. Often, they’re published on a website through an image viewer that stitches the images together to create a “flip-book” effect that spins around the product. Sometimes, the 360° photography also includes views from above or below. Some companies even include animations of the products in action.
Why does 360° photography matter in e-commerce?
According to a commissioned Forrester Consulting study conducted on behalf of Widen, “Consumers crave various types of product content to empower and support their purchase decisions, and feel most empowered when they can easily access complete, accurate, and easy-to-consume product information and reviews." When you add 360° spin imagery to your content mix, it can help increase conversion rates by as much as 47% and reduce your after sale returns by over 48%. You can also use 360° photography to create new efficiencies in your content production. Just repurpose the static images used to build the interactive 360° view for marketing promotions, alternate e-commerce images, or catalog images.
Simplify your 360° photography creation
If the idea of investing in a new type of content production process is overwhelming, you’re not alone. According to the Forrester Consulting study, process team silos and technology issues prevent organizations from delivering impactful, personalised strategies, with “fewer than a third managing a DAM or PIM system at an enterprise level.”
Luckily, you don’t have to purchase 360° photography equipment for your in-house studio or hire new employees to deliver a 360° product experience. You can simplify and automate 360° spin photography creation with a partner like Snap36.
Snap36 has innovative robotic equipment and workflow software designed to efficiently automate image capture and deliver 360° spin photography. They’re the leading provider of affordable e-commerce product photography for brands, distributors, and retailers. Snap36 is also the only Amazon content partner that can get your 360° images uploaded and published within one week.
Widen has partnered with Snap36 to simplify your 360° product experience. When you use the Widen Collective® for digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM), you get access to an operationally seamless “physical-to-digital” product content creation process for 360° photography.
Use the Widen Collective to manage 360° spin photography
Forrester Consutling’s study found that, “The top barriers to delivering a more integrated content strategy are silos — both across the teams responsible for creating and managing product content as well as supporting technologies.” With the Collective as your combined DAM and PIM solution, you can eliminate these silos and bring content together, send it anywhere, and accelerate your workflows.
We’ve made sure you have all the features you need to manage 360° spinsets inside the Collective. Here’s a list of what you can do:
- Upload, find, and manage your spinsets
- View thumbnail asset previews
- Interact with your spinsets on the Asset Digest page, in Entries, and in Portals
- Create share links and embed codes for your spinsets
- Use Entries to associate spinsets with products, alongside the product data, other assets, and marketing copy
- Use Entries to syndicate all product information, including spinsets, to e-commerce and marketing channels
With all these capabilities to manage your 360° spinset assets, you can create the kind of 3D product content experience you want at any step in the customer journey. And if you’re ready to use 360° product content to increase your online conversion, it’s time to request a demo of Widen Collective.
Nate Holmes, product marketing manager, Widen