Our client faced an issue. Ordinarily, for a consumer, being able to view 100 different variants per product is plenty. On this occasion it was nowhere near enough. With a special collection of high-end, luxury cabinet furnishings (called MIX) there was more to it. Our client had designed a unique collection with an opportunity for the discerning buyer to specify every part.
Consider our client’s beautifully designed, precision cabinet handle… it has a backplate, handles and visible screw-heads. For a designer or client to be able to select the right products, they need to be able to visualise them exactly. As each cabinet handle has the option of 19 finishes on two different sections of the handle, that adds up to a hefty 361 combinations per product. If the number of finishes increases, of course so does that number.
Our brilliant team of programmers coded a very stylish solution with two elements.
The MIX configurator displays every option from the whole portfolio in every possible permutation It also saves each variable as a layer that combines for the correct view. Therefore the platform doesn’t need to hold 361 images for each product, it stores each layer and brings them together as required
In ecommerce, as in life, there are ‘needs’ and ‘wants’ but sometimes there are also ‘dreams’ – we like to work on all three.
The way the configurator works is efficient. Each additional finish introduced needs just 38 individual layers to be created per product – instead of 361 complete images. That makes each new finish easier to introduce to the website whilst also occupying much less server space. How clever!
For this client we didn’t factor in size variants as that wasn’t necessary – but it’s easily incorporated for different kinds of products where different sizes are an important consideration.
Seeing exactly what you’re buying is essential, especially for the luxury market where each product choice is so carefully considered and usually priced accordingly.