When it comes to marketing and selling online, consumers are quickly recognizing the value of compelling visual content. Today, we’re facing a visual information revolution. People are now consuming content in three-second bursts. Smart brands are realizing the opportunity to leverage visual content and the powerful tools and platforms to drive more sales. Whether you’re looking to attract new customers, engage the existing ones, or build loyalty among your followers and fans, visual content should be at the heart of your strategy. Visual commerce puts that understanding to its core. So, what exactly is visual commerce?
What is Visual Commerce?
The ability to visualize online shopping has come a long way, and it's only just getting started. Visual commerce is the term used to describe a variety of formats from augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to product images, high-quality videos, and even animated gifs, that are included in the digital shopping experience. It's about using media in new ways to engage shoppers with your brand and products.
Brands can provide live videos, photos, demo videos, gifs, or AR filters of products to give the audience a better understanding of what the experience would look like. It is a simple, but effective way to visually show your customers how your product or services works.
Visual commerce does not only consist of custom-made content created especially for your brand, it can also benefit from user-generated content such as tagged photos, box opening & review videos.
The human brain is wired to process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. As a result, visuals communicate more information in a much faster, and more effective, way. When you convey a message or information as visual elements, it makes it easier to understand, process, and remember.
Today, depending on the changing purchasing behaviors and developing technology, visual commerce offers more layered options for e-commerce brands than just giving the visuals of the products to the consumers. Visual commerce leverages compelling imagery to attract, influence, and convert shoppers at every stage of the buying journey. With today’s technology, users can view a shoe with a camera filter to try before they buy it, or get more information about a product by watching a video instead of seeing it in the photo.
Benefits of Visual Commerce
Visual commerce is an important part of e-commerce and is continuing to grow along with technology. A good visual commerce experience solves two problems; it helps customers find products they want while also providing advanced tools to discover and interact with your products beyond traditional “shopping cart” functions. The reason is that this concept directly appeals to the consumer's senses and provides multiple benefits for the brand. Here are some of these benefits:
>> Differentiation
Since visual commerce is a field that develops constantly, the diversity in this field is increasing day by day. The use of creative visual content allows you to develop online strategies to differentiate your brand from its competitors and make it unique. It is a smooth way to stand out from the competition. Of course, we cannot say that it is completely effortless. However, an omnichannel e-commerce platform may eliminate the challenges and allow you to apply visual commerce practices to your e-store effectively, like Inveon’s highly capable omnichannel platform inCommerce.
>> Engagement
Bringing content to consumers through multiple channels and creating appealing online stores allows brands to attract more and more customers. Today’s consumer has access to more information and product choices than ever before. Therefore, it is all about creating meaningful relationships based upon a shared brand experience. Integrating visual elements into e-commerce entities creates that engaging shopping experience.
>> Rich Content
Effective use of colors, lighting, tone and other elements can encourage users to satisfy their shopping desires, throughout their experience. By taking advantage of the latest technologies you can draw attention to your online store and products, create more interesting content, and increase customer acquisition. Through creative content created with new tools such as AI, AR, or VR, you are enabled to serve your product information better. Thus, creating visual content with such implementations will help you to ensure that your customers focus on your products and your brand by attracting their attention in the online environment.
>> Increase Sales
Whether the customer is shopping for new clothing or creating home decor, visual components like videos or virtual try-on have a long-lasting impact on their decision-making process. Visual content improves product visibility and engagement, which increases conversions and sales revenue. With your content that you enrich and differentiate, you attract the attention of consumers and you will be more preferable than others.
How do e-commerce stores use visual commerce?
More and more businesses are making the switch from visual-only online selling strategies to enriched visual commerce with knowing that consumers expect more than just photos of products. With the latest developments, variations of visual commerce grow and let businesses be free with their ideas. Let’s check some of the prominent visual commerce examples:
>> 3D Digital Render for New Products
Launching new models almost every year, Apple uses 3D digital rendering for iPhone promotions to increase the perception of their products and create a better impression. It takes advantage of visual commerce by offering angles and zooms that cannot be achieved only with product photography, so consumers perceive the product the way Apple intended.
>> Placing App for Home Decor
It might be hard to imagine what a piece of furniture would look like in your home without actually seeing it in place. That's exactly why IKEA's Place app allows consumers to see the product in place before purchasing. Users may view exactly what a product might look like in a room using AR technology. The app provides an opportunity for customers to place and examine virtual furniture around their living environment before purchasing, which is a great example of content visualization.
Possible Developments for Visual Commerce
In digital commerce, keeping up with trends is crucial as every innovation becomes an opportunity to acquire a new customer. That's why online sellers need to keep their users' attention fresh at all times. The impact of visual content on consumers' purchasing behavior is undeniable. Online retailers need to aim to create new experiences where visual content is at the center of commerce such as 3D visualizations, AR and VR technologies. Customers are already seeking and experiencing 3D representations of items in a variety of contexts.
Machine learning and augmented reality will play an essential role in e-commerce in the future, and they are increasingly influencing our daily decisions. It would be wise to keep an eye on the improving visual worlds like Metaverse.
Visual Commerce is on the Rise
Brands are doing everything in their power to meet users’ needs and expectations. Adding visual elements such as user photos, videos, gifs, AR filters and VR experiences to your content will be an effective way to engage customers early on in the buying process and help them move towards a purchase. Once you've created all of these visual assets, the next step is to make sure they're incorporated into your e-commerce assets in the right way and the way for a success is through an effective UI/UX design.
Highly skilled UI&UX experts, operating our under digital growth management team GrowthLab, make sure all visual elements are embedded in the best possible way and products are presented to consumers in the most attractive way possible. The options for visually promoting your company and products are limitless. To stand out from the crowd, we have the solution that are tailored specifically to your brand’s needs.
In addition to all these, you need an e-commerce infrastructure that is talented enough to easily turn your dreams into reality. With Inveon inCommerce, you can have the robust platform you need to apply visual commerce strategies to your e-store in the most effective way. Thanks to our experienced teams, you can be sure that your creative content reaches the customer at every touchpoint with advanced omnichannel capabilities.
If you want to talk more about this interesting topic, contact us today to stay up to date with the latest trends and benefit from their advantages!
