In these times of uncertainty and nervousness, with isolation being thrust upon us all by COVID-19, more and more businesses are relying on the internet to promote and sell their products.
Traditional eCommerce stores are still very effective at selling many types of products, but in certain industries an Online Shop is probably not enough… Some industries are dependent on customers viewing their product in a Showroom environment, where potential buyers can view and “get inspiration” as a part of the buying process.
In these days of isolation, a Virtual Showroom provides an excellent alternative for showcasing many types of products.
Below is a fairly simple example of a Standalone Virtual Showroom which includes branding, and Information and Video hotspots :
Some of the industries that traditionally are reliant on showrooms include :
- Motor Vehicles
- Campers, Caravans and Motorhomes
- Furniture / Home Styling
- Kitchens / Bathrooms
- Building Products – Bricks, Lighting, Timber, Blinds, Sheds
- Display Homes
Virtual Showroom Features and Functionality
A Virtual Showroom could be as simple as a traditional Google Virtual Tour – which allows people to access it via Google Search or Google Maps, but only offers very basic navigation and viewing capabilities. However, a Standalone Virtual Tour, which is independent of Google and offers a huge variety of feature and capabilities, is likely to be much more effective. Some of the functionality available as a Standalone Virtual Tour could include :
- Hotspots – Icons or areas which when clicked or hovered can popup or open a variety of different types of content
- Information – simple text, or rich text (including styling and images)
- Video – Pops up a Video window and plays a Video
- Website links – Links to more information on your own or a third party website
- Images – popup window with Photos, or even a gallery of photos
- Documents – can link directly to a document for download or display (Word, PDF, Excel, etc…)
- Interactive Experience – a Virtual Showroom is not a passive experience… visitors get to control what they look at… They can Look and move around in 360 degrees and and Zoom in on what they want a closer look at. This provides an “emotional” buying to the experience which is much more effective than passively watching a video or looking at a photo gallery
- Branding – You can include your own logo (and/or the logos of your suppliers) wherever you wish
- Links – Your Virtual Showroom can provide links to your own, or third party websites for additional information
- Accessibility – Anyone with Internet access (either a desktop or mobile device) can visit your Virtual Showroom… They do not need to physically visit it, so can access it from remote or isolated locations. This provides a much wider potential community of visitors to your showroom
- Menu – you can include dropdown menus so visitors can quickly and easily move to products they are interested in
- Floorplan – a Floorplan provides an overview of that you have on offer, and allows people to easily move to areas they are interested in
- Direct Node Access – able to link directly to any view via a URL Link (which could be emailed to potential customers)
- Randomize – can be setup to randomly display different vies of you showroom if (for example) no action is taken for 1 minute
- Autorotation – can be setup to automatically start rotating after a certain period of inactivity
Below is a basic Google Virtual Tour with standard Street view navigation features :
Virtual Showroom Options and Costs
Costs for a Virtual Showroom can vary significantly and is dependent on the size and layout of your physical showroom, and the features and functionality that you want to offer… However, costs could start at a few hundred dollars for a small, simple Google Virtual Tour and range up to several thousand dollars for a large feature rich Standalone Virtual Tour.
We would typically be able to process and publish your completed Virtual Showroom within 7-10 days of the initial photoshoot.
We Can Help with your Virtual Showroom
If you are not sure if a Virtual Showroom is suitable for your business, would like to learn more, or would like to discuss options and costs, please feel free to give us a call on 0403 023 223 or Contact Us.