Adobe Scene7 Blog – MackTalk

If you want to move merchandise, just showing customers a picture of a product isn't enough. Gone are the days where heavy copy and small imagery moves the needle. Now, displaying a combination of dynamically served product images including alternative views or full 360-degree spin (leveraging interactive zoom and pan) and product video tells the whole story. After all, dynamic zoom and pan enables users to interactively examine a product in detail, 360-degree spin creates an in-store experience, emulating the process of picking up and examining the merchandise, and video completes the story, replacing the in-store clerk, and demonstrating in perfect clarity the product features and benefits--on demand (no waiting for the clerk to finish up with another patron first!). And the ability of video to educate, inform, and show off products in all their glory has proven again and again to complement the product images and details.

The perfect execution leverages an "integrated viewer or player" that serves any type of rich dynamic content (high resolution sets of images including colors, lifestyle and alternative angles for zooming and panning, sets of videos or both). A user must be able to clearly understand which type of content he/she is viewing, as well as have the ability to easily toggle back and forth between each dynamic content type. That is why in the latest Adobe Scene7 release, mixed media viewers have been added as they enable even "non-technical" users to upload, build, publish and serve integrated combinations of videos, images (color and multiple views), SWFs, spin sets and audio.

Titanium Jewelry is a great example of a site that leverages product imagery alongside product video for the ultimate online shopping experience. Customers can see jewelry in as much detail as they might within a retail environment, and the video brings the piece to life - showing every angle of an item of interest.

Field & Stream is another strong example of a site that integrates product photography stills with product video in a tray viewing format for easy access to expanded product detail. Shoppers can toggle between product shots (hero and lifestyle) and video for an end-to-end overview of the desired merchandise. Field & Stream worked with Circumerro Media, its interactive agency to enable the dynamic media display using Scene7.

Posted by Scene7 at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An online shopper clicking on zoom is the equivalent of an in-store shopper picking up an item to take a closer look. That's generally when a sales associate steps in to offer assistance, point out key features, and basically helps to guide the shopping experience. You can accomplish a very similar scenario on your website by adding zoom targets to your product's images and incorporating text tips as well. Here are some great examples:

TravelSmith
This site uses large thumbnail images in its viewer to recommend specific areas on the larger image where shoppers can zoom to see specific product details.

ExOfficio
In a pop-up zoom viewer, this site adds merchandising copy beneath each thumbnail target to describe a feature, giving the user more information prior to clicking on any target.

Telescope.com
This site incorporates a similar approach as the first two mentioned above, but with an embedded zoom viewer. Also, the thumbnails and text appear as an overlay directly onto the product image itself.

Zoom targets with rollover text can be especially helpful when trying to point out multiple products in a single lifestyle shot. For example:

Liberty Hardware
This site uses one single image to point out items in the collection such as the towel holder, towel ring, robe hook, and toilet paper holder. Rollover text indicates each specific SKU number. Shoppers can also interactively pan the entire image themselves by simply moving the image with their mouse and clicking on the zoom controls. This is a great way to use lifestyle room scenes that show off each fixture in a collection.

Posted by Scene7 at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What are you doing this weekend? Will you be sitting at your computer creating multiple versions and various dimensions of the same image for your website? Why not take the weekend off and have this monotonous task done for you with a dynamically driven imaging system?

Did you know that multiple derivative images (a must-have for any successful ecommerce site) can be created based on a single high-resolution image? Rather than manually creating several images­—for example, a thumbnail and an enlarged-view image—you can take a single master image, and have all modified images generated as you request them, on the fly. Most Adobe Scene7 customers begin with this basic (but effective) feature when they first start out using rich media and then slowly add more automation as they grow comfortable with the solution.

The nice thing about a feature like Dynamic Imaging is that beyond the obvious benefits, it enables you to make universal changes (almost like a “search and replace” function in a program like Microsoft Word) and quickly affect the size and formatting of an image “type” throughout your website or application. You can leverage a collection of size and formatting attributes to streamline your web production and make your job MUCH easier.

Have a look at some examples of customers who’ve had great success using Scene7’s Dynamic Imaging.

Anthropologie, an innovative specialty retailer & wholesaler, has recognized a 3X reduction in staffing & production costs after rolling out Scene7’s Dynamic Imaging solution to create and deploy all imagery and online catalogs for its e-commerce website.

Moosejaw, a multi-channel outdoor sporting goods retailer, was able to save 60% in time and cost savings by adding dynamic zoom, re-sizing and color swatching across all images on their e-commerce website. Before Scene7, Moosejaw had at least a three-step process for preparing images—which included getting an image from the supplier and creating at least 3 different sizes per color, and per product, which resulted in about 15,000 different image variations every 6 months. Because Scene7 can dynamically generate every variation from a single master image, Moosejaw was able to cut the number of images they needed to create to less than 5,000 images - netting tremendous savings across the board.

Learn more about Image Sizing and Image Presets in Adobe Scene7.

Posted by Scene7 at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been proven that shoppers' eyes are drawn first to images, so that's the best place to put important information. But you certainly don’t want to be updating your graphic files every time you want to change the text. By using dynamic overlays to flag important messages — such as "New" or "On sale" or "Offered in multiple colors"— you can increase response, click through, and conversion rates.

Let’s look at some examples:



House of Fraser, an International department store group known for delivering a robust online shopping experience, employs flagging to bring attention to items on the site that are "New" or "Exclusive." They do this so that shoppers can learn as much as possible about a product right on the category or browse pages – without having to drill down to a product page level or even the shopping cart. When a product is no longer new or exclusive, it's easy to update the graphic by removing the overlay. It keeps the site fresh and customers looking for the telltale flags.

The Home Shopping Network does a great job at tying overlays to inventory levels and showing that on the product pages. Depending on the level, a different overlay will appear such as "Almost sold out" or "On wait list" or "Sold out.” Elevating such real-time details can instill a sense of urgency that encourages shoppers to act quickly and that, in turn, elevates HSN’s ROI.

Click here if you’d like to learn more about Adobe Scene7 and applying dynamic templates to your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why should shoppers have to navigate all the way down to product detail pages to find key information? By making details available sooner rather than later, you can improve the overall shopping experience. Add more information in your category and search result pages, including details like price, available colors and sizes, alternative views, special offers, and even an ‘Add to cart’ button. For example:

Lands' End
This site requires minimal clicking. By just mousing over any image, alternative views for pricing, special offers, and color options are immediately displayed. When you click on a color swatch, the alternative views change to that color. When you click through to the product page, the color remains the same as what you were just viewing on the category page.

We conducted a survey earlier this year and the results only confirm that Lands’ End is following “best practices” in the way that they merchandise their inventory. Of those who responded to our survey, the following tactics were found very effective/effective:

Alternative images – 99%
Color swatching / colorizing – 97%
Lifestyle imagery / photos – 95%
Quick looks & rollover views – 93%
Visual filtering & advanced search – 93%

Posted by Scene7 at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When customers explore your product at retail, they touch it, turn it, and examine it closely from every angle. Why not provide the same experience to online shoppers? With 360-degree spin, you can do that and more. Multiple, detailed images can be integrated into a viewer to provide a seamless spinning view of your product. Shoppers can zoom to view high-resolution images for ultimate detail. And, best of all, you can use “hot spots” to point out special features or guide shoppers to product details related to specific angles – as if a sales representative were right there with them viewing the product!

DSW.com is a great example of a site using 360-degree spin effectively. They display nearly every shoe using this dynamic technology, offering automatic as well as manual spin so that shoppers can experience the full range of interactivity. In addition to viewing shoes on the product page in an embedded view, shoppers can launch a full screen and a larger view to see the product in even greater detail – including the top, sole, and all sides of the shoe.

Another great example is UnderArmour.com because spin is integrated with the rest of the dynamic viewing – including alternative views, colors, and hot spots for technical specifications – in an embedded full page product view.

Click here if you are interested in learning more about Adobe Scene7 and applying 360-degree spin on your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since not all action happens on the product page, it is key to think about every place where visual information can be used to improve the customer experience and stimulate purchase. QuickViews or QuickLooks in the browse or category pages are great examples of providing shoppers with all the necessary product information prior to clicking to the product detail page. QuickViews don’t necessarily mean small views or views with limited information either. The best examples are ones that have complete information – nearly as comprehensive as the product detail page itself – including rich media viewing such as colors, zoom for details, alternative views, and importantly, an "add to cart" option. QuickViews should also show critical information such as pricing, sale price and special offers so there is no need for shoppers to click further except to buy.

Here are some great examples:

Anthropologie
With an innovative modal layer "QuickShop" feature, shoppers enjoy seamless access to the same information that’s provided on product detail pages – even zoom. And the browse view still shows all color options as swatches so shoppers who don’t click on the QuickShop still know that an item is available in other colors.

Moosejaw
This site shows you that "QuickViews" doesn’t necessarily mean small views. And not only are they offered on the browse and category pages, but also on the product detail pages on the up-sell and cross-sell items.

Click here if you want to learn more about Adobe Scene7 and applying dynamic imaging to your site.

Posted by Scene7 at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)