How We Build Your Product Configurator
Howto
In recent months, more and more companies have been interested to build a 3d configurator to enhance interactivity between customizable products and their customers. Of course, this is due to reduced interactivity in showrooms and other related physical sites that help potential customers feel and interact with the products.
Simplio3D helps to easily build a 3d configurator and has been a great addition to many companies over the past years and we have learned a lot about how to properly integrate one into a successful business.
The recent pandemic event has led many companies to consider implementing a product configurator. But this is not always easy to do, so below we will cover some useful information before a company decides what type of configurator it needs.
1. Define the requirements
Depending on the products you want to configure and the level of complexity in terms of options, the configurator can vary greatly from the simplest that can be easily done in Excel to the complex ones with various restrictions, integrations and a complete management system.
You must first set the requirements: what products you want to customize, information about options, restrictions (conditional logic options), if a product visualization is needed (2D, 3D or both), if you want users to save their configurations (user profile), integration with eCommerce to complete payments or integration with a CRM system and other peripheral features, such as virtual and augmented reality integration.
Once you know the requirements, you know what features you can expect from the configurator. Depending on the product, you may only need 2D or 3D only. For the configurator that contains more than one configurable product, such as modular elements, it is best to have both 2D and 3D. You can use the configurator to generate leads or to complete orders using an e-commerce platform.
2. What technology is best for your configurator
Knowing the requirements, you know what technologies the configurator will use. Using 3D visualization for the configurator will need a technology that allows this feature, such as: three.js, Babylon.js, Unity, Unreal etc. For 2D, the technologies used are: HTML5, pixi.js, three.js, etc. For web development, WebGL-based technology is usually written in javascript programming. If the configurator needs to finalize orders then it needs to be integrated with known ecommerce systems such as: Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.
In our case, before implementing the configurator, we go through the client’s requirements in detail and see the advantages and disadvantages of each technology. Depending on the product and the main purpose of the configurator, there are situations where companies rely more on the visualization side or available options, in other cases companies do not even need a visualization for their product and just want to quickly generate orders or proposals. Depending on their needs, the technologies can be deployed.
3. Cost of implementing
In the early days most of the product configurators wore developed from scratch which made them quite expensive and time consuming. This is why we built Simplio3D, having most of the common elements already developed its easier to concentrate only on the customization part and have the configurator ready at an affordable cost and more quickly.
The cost of a product configurator is strictly related to the level of complexity. But the configurator does not have to have all the features at once, it can be implemented in stages. Going through the steps, you can first see the reaction of your customers and then see what additions are worth making to align your configurator with your business. This way, you can better control your implementation costs and make sure your configurator is properly scaled.
The Simplio3D platform is a library that contains a set of modules with various features that you can find on most configurators, such as: 2D and 3D viewport, Product Options Management Module, Integrations, User Interface, Login/Account Module, etc. Depending on each configurator, some modules are enabled and others are disabled and, above the version, can be customized because most of the time, the configurators are quite different from each other.
You can always contact us for a complete free consultation and see if Simplio3D can help your business.
