What do you miss the most in online shopping? The feeling of how a product looks and fits. That's something only offline shopping offers.
Technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have come to the rescue to enable ecommerce brands to bridge this major gap. Though AR has become a familiar experience for B2C users, virtual reality has struggled with widespread adoption due to limitations in building hardware components.
With augmented reality already becoming familiar, innovations in virtual reality technology and hardware have given rise to a promising future: Spatial Commerce.
If you are an ecommerce brand looking to provide a differentiated experience, Spatial Commerce is the go-to option.
This blog will explore:
What is Spatial Commerce?
Spatial commerce enables ecommerce brands to mix augmented and virtual reality to provide consumers with an immersive shopping experience.
Spatial commerce takes the best parts of online shopping, like buying at your fingertips, saving time and money traveling, researching multiple product choices, comparing prices, etc., and complements them with immersive AR and VR experiences.
Why is Spatial Commerce essential for B2B?
B2C ecommerce has been the torch bearer for Spatial Commerce. However, for B2B, spatial commerce adoption might seem too early to adopt or not an essential experience. It’s time to start thinking otherwise. Here’s why.
In B2C, spatial experiences add to a buyer’s excitement about shopping. The more a B2C buyer is able to experience a product close to reality, the better the chances of conversion.
However, B2B buyers don’t make impulsive buying decisions. They devote more time to research, compare, and discuss as many details as possible before making a decision.
There’s more convincing to be done than just enticing customers to buy. Convincing customers requires delivering even the finer details to customers clearly and understandably.
Here’s where Spatial Commerce becomes a mandate for B2B. Now, let’s look at the areas where Spatial Commerce can be a game-changer for B2B ecommerce.
Spatial Commerce in B2B – Areas of application
Product visualization
Product visualization forms the base for B2B brands to provide differentiated and immersive experiences for consumers.
By creating 3D models of your products, potential buyers can experience them through smartphones and VR headsets. Customers can perform 3D overlays of products into physical (real-world) locations to understand how they fit.
With 3D visualization, consumers can examine the product from all angles, like they would during an in-store purchase, helping them make a clear buying decision.
3D product visualization, source: Shopware
Support and maintenance
Heavy B2B products come with long-term maintenance and support commitments from the manufacturer or distributor. AR-enabled maintenance can save time and money and improve support efficiency.
With more complex machinery, the need for prompt repair and maintenance grows. Providing AR-enabled work instruction can save time when identifying issues. Service engineers in the field can share ideas with annotations on services or repairs they are attending to with senior staff to get help faster. AR also provides a detailed view of intricate parts inside complex systems, enabling service personnel to identify and locate issues faster.
AR can minimize human errors and gather valuable data to improve service efficiency and finetune product offerings.
Effective staff training and assistance
Spatial commerce can redefine staff training for in-house teams by providing an interactive way to understand products closely. Equipping service staff with the right information during a service can reduce rework and waste and result in the timely completion of service, ultimately improving customer satisfaction. Enabling your sales team with AR-powered presentations, demos, and walkthroughs can improve conversion rates, directly contributing to your ROI.
Future of spatial experiences augmented by AI
As augmented reality and virtual reality lead the way in B2B and B2C spatial commerce, the advent of technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is soon expected to take it to the next level. For instance, while customizing configurable products, AI and ML can dynamically generate a simulation of how a customized product works. In terms of personalization, AI can pick products based on users’ purchase history and deliver 3D visuals and AR projections.
ROI benefits of Spatial Commerce
Improves conversions
Experience matters the most in ecommerce. Spatial Commerce delivers it well by providing all the luxury of offline shopping digitally at your fingertips. The immersive experience that potential customers engage with keeps them coming back for more.
A deep dive into complex products enables users to make informed decisions before they make an expensive purchase. It convinces better than a product description that claims it to be good. An immersive and more convincing experience means better conversions.
Reduced returns
Spatial Commerce provides a try-before-you-buy experience. The actual try-before-you-buy works well, but the hurdles surrounding it, like shipment, managing wear and tear, and online frauds, make it practically challenging to implement.
Spatial commerce can serve as a solution here. It gives a more realistic look at what people are purchasing. In fact, customers get to see hidden details that, in several B2B scenarios, cannot be seen while purchasing offline.
Also, Spatial commerce answers a lot of post-purchase questions, such as, “How will a product fit? “Where do I install it?”, “How does a product look after configured?” It results in satisfied customers and less effort and investment in managing returns.
Customer retention
Spatial Commerce enables B2B brands to provide a differentiated experience compared to their competitors. Though experiences like mixed reality, AR, and VR have become commonplace in B2C, they are still in the early stages when it comes to B2B.
Embedding 3D visuals and AR-powered 3D overlays across the customer journey enables B2B brands to carve a niche for themselves. Such differentiated experiences create an appealing brand impression and encourage customers to frequent your store for more purchases, improving your customer lifetime value.
How can B2B brands prepare for Spatial Commerce?
Consider product type and audience
Spatial Commerce elevates your store’s digital experience. However, it might not be suitable for certain types of products and target audiences. While considering Spatial commerce, analyze whether your products need AR or VR capabilities. In the case of B2B, brands dealing with complex machinery, automotive, and high-tech instruments that require clear demos and walkthroughs can be a right fit for Spatial commerce. Also, if you are a B2B brand offering configurable products, go for it.
Adopt a phased approach
Don’t go all in at once. Choose the number of products wisely. For example, list your bestsellers and consider the ones frequently bought online. Finalize a few products from the list and create 3D visualization, overlays, and simulations. Check the level of engagement by analyzing how existing and new visitors respond to it. A/B-test the placements of 3D visualization across the website. Then, move on to adding spatial experience for more products.
Choose the right platform
Integrating spatial commerce starts with the platform you choose. Many platforms in the market propose to favor initiatives like Composable commerce, Headless commerce, social commerce, etc., and it's the same for Spatial Commerce.
Shortlist only the platforms already providing or frequently innovating in the spatial commerce space. Such platforms provide the necessary features out of the box and provide room for improvisation, making your investment worthwhile in the long run.
B2B brands that have succeeded using Spatial Commerce
Ottobock – Healthcare
AR app for prosthetics, source
The challenge:
Ottobock is a manufacturer and supplier of prosthetic limbs. The brand wanted to build a solution to showcase its products in an innovative way. As a manufacturer of prosthetic limbs, its portfolio had products with intricate working parts and complex mechanisms that are often concealed. The brand wanted to showcase the efforts and thought put into building every prosthetic to overcome specific physical challenges.
Solution:
The brand built a CGI version for three of its prosthetic products. The physical marketing and sales collaterals were embedded with an AR feature that, when scanned, revealed a simulation of a prosthetic limb in action.
Salespersons can also reveal the prosthetics' concealed parts and show users how every part of a complex system works.
Bosch – Engineering
AR app for automobile repair training, source: Bosch
The challenge:
Bosch, the globally renowned German engineering company, has car service workshops as part of its service offerings. The brand wanted to improve its automotive repairs and training workshops and reduce time spent on maintenance services.
The solution:
Bosch leveraged augmented reality to develop applications that multiple service engineers can use. Using AR, the app pinpoints automobile components that need to be fixed, along with instructions on what action to take and what tools to use.
The application also helped view components underlying automotive parts and identify issues. This reduced time wasted disassembling parts that were not connected to the issue. With the AR app, Bosch experienced 15% less time spent on every servicing activity.
The brand also adopted augmented reality in its training workshops. The training app enabled the brand to set exclusive modes for trainers and trainees, encouraged active participation, and enhanced the overall staff training experience.
Shopware – Leading the way in Spatial Commerce solutions
Shopware is an ecommerce platform that enables faster adoption of spatial commerce into digital experiences. The platform accommodates spatial commerce features in its core framework. The built-in features ensure faster onboarding and implementation of experiences like augmented reality into your store.
Shopware’s Spatial Commerce features
3D view of a bicycle with click and drag to rotate option, source: Shopware
To start with, Shopware facilitates features to showcase 3D models of products. With the ‘3D viewer block for Shopping Experiences,’ you can place engaging 3D visualizations of products anywhere on the product pages, category pages, and listing pages.
Customers can scan QR codes in any physical location to trigger augmented reality experiences like virtual try-ons and 3D overlays.
3D overlay of products into physical environment, source: Shopware
There’s much more.
Spatial Commerce for Community Edition
Spatial Commerce features are available for the Shopware Community Edition as well. The Shopware developer community and partners providing Shopware Development services will have access to them, which means merchants can customize the core to build features that serve peculiar use cases.
Scene Editor
Shopware is pushing the boundaries of innovation in the Spatial Commerce space with its 3D Scene Editor feature. This tool allows users to project products against various backgrounds and adjust lighting and shadow effects for a more immersive shopping experience.
The Scene Editor has already been released as part of the Shopware Insider Preview program, where users can test it as a Blueprint feature and provide valuable feedback. Stay tuned for its wider rollout!
Final words
Spatial Commerce is not a fancy, proactive initiative for B2B. Instead, it’s a necessity.
Consumer expectations are changing rapidly, and B2C is heavily influencing them. A B2B buyer who represents an organization is often a B2C consumer, and they tend to expect the same conveniences, personalization, and engaging digital experiences across their B2B buying journey.
Secondly, the demographics of the decision-makers in B2B organizations are getting younger. The younger generation is more tech-savvy and expects DIY services and self-explanatory demos, walkthroughs, and illustrations to research and make clear decisions.
Spatial Commerce is necessary for B2B organizations to adapt to the changing B2B landscape, ensure steady growth, and outsmart competition. If you are thinking of considering Shopware for your spatial commerce initiatives, team up with an official Shopware partner agency.
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