Online apparel sales have an image problem. Image as in how websites display garments, footwear, and accessories to entice shoppers to buy. Notable exceptions aside, most product photographs don’t narrow The Sensorial Chasm: the difference between touching and closely inspecting a garment vs experiencing it virtually on a screen.
Images online typically are small, two dimensional, and lack detail. Zoom features aren’t the norm. Another drawback: scarcity. Most sites show an individual item from only one or a few angles. At a brick-and-mortar store you don’t pick up a tennis shoe and only look at one side and the sole—you turn it every which way.
It’s not as if companies don’t want to give online shoppers a rich visual experience. But most of their sites were built before a recent paradigm-breaking advance in imaging.
Consider the expense companies face using traditional digital photography to display, let’s say, a shirt. To show it from more than one angle, more than one photograph has to be taken. Multiple angles mean multiple pictures shot, processed, and posted. The more photos the higher the cost.
But what if apparel and footwear companies could display on their websites a single large product image that with a click of a mouse automatically rotates 360 degrees? What if shoppers could also turn the image, viewing the product from any angle? What if the 3D image displays the natural drape of the fabric and is illuminated as if photographed in a high-end professional studio?
Add to the what-if scenarios the option to customize the product—select multiple color choices, in some cases not just for the entire garment but select parts, and to change embroidery and so on. Before the garment is bought and made.
One image is actually hundreds, even thousands, when the possible permutations are factored in. They’re all dynamically rendered with a vividness equal or better than seeing items on an analog store mannequin. Viewing the images is also decidedly better than digging through clothes on store racks.
Embodee has transformed the what-ifs into what is, bridging The Sensorial Chasm for the first time. Our patented imaging process is upending the old way of doing things, delivering a unique virtual viewing and customization experience that’s, well, like being there.
Try our demo and judge for yourself whether our claims are true or marketing blather. View the shirt from endless angles. Add your own design sensibility.
Now view the apparel industry’s image problem from another angle. See it as opportunity.