How Zakeke is Paving the Way for the Future of E-commerce
E-commerce is booming. Recent reports predict that the US e-commerce market alone will hit $875 billion in sales by the end of 2022. For retailers, this means there is enormous potential for online sales, but it also means there is considerable competition.
To attract e-commerce shoppers and convert them to buyers, retailers need something to help them stand out. Zakeke is a company that helps retailers do just that, providing the tools that transform e-commerce experiences from ordinary to extraordinary.
“Technology has come a long way since the appearance of e-commerce, but there are still issues that need to be addressed,” says Angelo Coletta, CEO and Founder of Zakeke. “The improved capability that is becoming available with 3D technology and augmented reality (AR) is now giving retailers the ability to bridge the gap between customers and a fulfilling online shopping experience.”
Angelo founded Zakeke in 2017 to assist retailers in their efforts to leverage the power of new technology for reaching and retaining online customers.
“Online shopping simplifies so many things,” Angelo explains. “It puts a world of products at our fingertips, allowing us to purchase essentially anything we want with the click of a button. Still, shoppers cannot fully experience the products that they are finding online before putting the money down.”
As Angelo sees it, the biggest problem with the current state of e-commerce is the disconnect between customers and the products that they are purchasing.
“E-commerce has never been able to completely replicate the personal experience of browsing a brick-and-mortar store,” Angelo says. “This is where emerging 3D and AR technology can dramatically improve the online shopping experience. That is the power that Zakeke brings to retailers.”
Innovating the online shopping experience
One of Zakeke’s many success stories involves the French company Flex Arcade, which manufactures and sells arcade cabinets that echo the style of the golden age of video games. Flex Arcade offers its customers countless customization options for a product that is very visual. Its primary challenges in the area of e-commerce was empowering customers to design a unique product and visualize how it would ultimately look in a 3D environment.
Flex Arcade overcame the challenge by using Zakeke’s 3D Configurator to dramatically reduce the amount of manual work its employees were doing, as well as to deliver to its customers an unprecedented visual shopping experience.
“The realistic 3D models and the augmented reality function provided by the Zakeke platform allowed customers to see the configured product in detail and in the place where it would ultimately be used,” Angelo explains. “For something like a custom arcade cabinet, seeing it in its intended environment is essential. 3D Visualization allows customers to get in touch with the product, exactly as it happens in a store.”
Integrating Zakeke’s tools into its online shopping environment allowed Flex Arcade to not only cut down on its workload, but also to increase sales.
Increasing the number of online conversions
Flex Arcade’s experience is not unique, however. Recent research shows that augmented reality boosts online shopping sales by up to 200 percent.
“The modern consumer — particularly millennials and Gen Z — prefer shopping on sites that replace physical interactions with more engaging virtual experiences,” Angelo says. “Online retailers that provide 3D visualizations of products and augmented reality meet the new expectations and subsequently win the customer’s business.”
Regardless of the business or its target market, the technology that Zakeke makes available provides three game-changing benefits. First, it increases shopper confidence. Online customers are not just shopping; they are researching. 3D visualizations and augmented reality allow shoppers to envision how a product would fit in their home, moving them one step closer to a confident purchase. Research shows that conversion rates increase by up to 94 percent when shoppers engage with AR.
Another issue that Zakeke’s technology addresses is the increase in customer returns resulting from online shopping, which is a big problem for online retailers. One of the primary reasons online shoppers give for returning goods is that the product they received did not match the description they found online.
“The product return problem can easily be solved with the use of Visual Customization, AR and 3D visualization,” says Angelo. “AR, for instance, offers virtual try-on and product demos, providing shoppers with an opportunity to try before they buy. As a result, customers can make more informed buying decisions, reducing the high customer return rates and the impact of returns on carbon emissions, globally, together with brands sustainability.”
Until recently, cutting edge tech like Visual Customizers, 3D visualization and AR was something only an elite few online retailers could provide for their customers. Zakeke changes that. It is paving the way for a new era in e-commerce and opening the doors for any business to excel in the online space.
