Product visuals are the first of many touchpoints in a customer’s buying journey, and often a determinant of whether they’ll get to the next phase, or the last and most important one: checkout. Over the past few years, more consumers have become unsatisfied with just product-accurate photos and videos represented in 2D. Now, they look for a sensory product experience—visuals that are interactive, immersive and lifelike in 3D. They want a picture of a car elevated to one they can tilt, rotate and zoom into its interior. They want to imagine the driving experience through the lighting-accentuated features of the vehicle.  

 For over two decades, KeyShot’s 3D rendering tools (now called KeyShot Studio) have helped companies create the immersive product experience that customers long for. One of several case studies is Under Armour, the sports apparel company that pivoted to KeyShot’s 3D rendering tools 5 years ago and upped their visuals game. Justin Schlothauer, the company’s lead design engineer, considers KeyShot’s 3D visuals as more than renderings, calling them digital products because of their real-life product accuracy.

Creating an immersive product experience through visuals is only the start with 3D rendering software, though—many more underexplored benefits could boost sales and elevate your ecommerce business. Wondering how to get started on 3D rendering tools, what uses CGI serves, and the benefits it promises? Sit tight. This article gets into all the good stuff. 

3D Rendering and CGI Use Cases 

The question many ecommerce business leaders will immediately ask when trying out 3D and CGI technology is: How would 3D rendering actually help ecommerce businesses differently? Well, in a lot of ways as it turns out. Let’s look at the big three. 

Create hundreds of product images and animations/videos with ease 

If you’re getting marketing right, you’re probably constantly looking to build up buzz for your products ahead of their release using vivid visual assets. Pre-launch marketing is this decade’s marketing big thing. But how do you accomplish this when the product is still in production? A reliable 3D rendering software changes the game for you. 

HiViz, a vehicle LED light company, utilized KeyShot Studio’s 3D rendering tool to produce realistic representations of their future products for marketing campaigns, allowing them to produce realistic visuals before the physical product was ready. Razor’s marketing team could easily swap out colors and sticker configurations to swiftly generate several options for their electric scooters using KeyShot Studio. With KeyShot, they had several dozen images to drive pre-launch marketing and cut down cost, human effort, and time constraints into seamless productivity.  

Using KeyShot places you several steps ahead of your competitors as high-quality visual materials are no longer a time-consuming or expensive endeavor: as soon as you have your CAD model finalized, you can create an infinite amount of photo-realistic renderings for your marketing, ecommerce site, and packaging. 

Showcase hidden features 

Many products don’t sell today because their selling points—usually the technical and supportive features—are hidden. But 3D visuals let you comprehensively highlight them in ways customers can even interact with. One perk of KeyShot’s 3D visualization software is capturing all possible angles of your product and putting them in the spotlight.  

If you’re selling a piece of furniture, customers can now see beyond its plushness or sturdiness. They can also explore how it would look pressed up against a wall, how the furniture’s anchor could blend against their carpet, and how it’ll fit in different room sizes.  KeyShot’s 3D render engine utilizes several features including exploded and cutaway views to lucidly express every aspect of your product, convey tones, and describe real-life usability even more than professional photographs will. Looking for a change from the usual customer patronage numbers? Boost conversion? Sell like never before? Then you want customers to see all the features of your products and you want a software that helps you easily encapsulate them: KeyShot Studio. 

Design, engineering, marketing and packaging teams play pivotal roles across the product go-to-market journey, but they lack the technology to carry advanced visualizations from first sketch to market delivery. KeyShot calls this concept “Product Design-to-Market,” consolidating leading 3D Visualization and Digital Asset Management software, and helping product companies facilitate a more efficient and collaborative journey from initial product sketch to market delivery.  

 “We envision a future where companies spend days instead of months designing a product; seamlessly deliver visual assets across go-to-market channels in a few clicks; and designers, engineers, and marketers work seamlessly together, without friction or confusion,” Thorsgaard said. 

How 3D Visuals and CGI Can Elevate Your Ecommerce Business  

Notice how ecommerce has largely shifted to visually-immersive social media platforms like  TikTok and Instagram? It’s the visuals. Other features that Instagram offers—like engagement metrics and purchasing pattern data—are simply add-ons. The evidence is clear: customers go wherever the best visuals are. 

Improved Ecommerce sales 

A potential customer is 11 times more likely to purchase your product when they see it in 3D. They have a clear understanding of the product and are less likely to abandon their cart due to uncertainties. For you, this means increased sales. Many founders who have used KeyShot’s 3D rendering software corroborate this statistic with real-time feedback. One of them is BlendJet, America’s pint-sized blender company. Switching from photos of the BlendJet to KeyShot renders immediately increased their website conversion rate and sales by 20%. 

Decreased product return rates 

3D visuals reduce return rates, helping customers more easily understand the size, color, texture, and other details (especially hidden features) better than typical 2D visuals. One of the most common return causes is “item not as described” — and with a scientifically accurate visual, that matches the real item down to the smallest detail, customers are much less likely to be disappointed.  

Improved customer loyalty  

Your customers detest when they can’t see your product well enough to understand how it’ll solve their needs. Accurate and interactive 3D visuals and CGI build out a seamless and satisfying shopping experience for them and will encourage them to return for more purchases. Sometimes you don’t need to spend so much money on follow-up email marketing. You just need to get visuals right.  

Outstanding marketing using high-end 3D visual materials also intrigues customers. If they associate your business with cutting-edge technology and superior service, from your use of advanced visuals, they’re likely to develop a strong affinity for you and stay very close. 

It’s Time to Make the Move 3D

To stay on top of today’s quickly evolving ecommerce world, entrepreneurs need to be ready to make calculated pivots that directly respond to new buying behaviors. The world is now immensely visually-driven and your ecommerce business should be too. Forward-thinking entrepreneurs find the best 3D visual software and reap from the large sales it’ll help their ecommerce business drive. Many entrepreneurs choose KeyShot, others look elsewhere. 

In April, we announced that Luxion and Digizuite united as KeyShot. We are now one integrated company, with a bold vision to reinvent the way products are brought to market by seamlessly connecting every phase of the product design journey. 

Today, I’m excited to share an update on the steps we’re taking to deliver on our expanded vision and unveil our new brand look –  designed to inspire the innovation, creativity and collaboration central to our next chapter. 

Not only have we updated our website and branding, we’re introducing new names for our main KeyShot products, and we’ve also launched an entirely new tool for design teams called KeyShot Hub. 

All this newness is a result of the fresh vision and direction at KeyShot, to help our customers facilitate a more efficient and collaborative journey from product concept to market delivery. We know from working with designers, design leaders and executives that companies are bogged down in processes rife with inefficiency, redundancy and confusion. A Product Design-to-Market strategy provides ample cost and time-saving opportunities, freeing up precious resources for delivering innovative products to your customers.  

We have been hard at work behind the scenes with these developments, and I am so excited to share them with you.  

KeyShot software is now called KeyShot Studio 

The KeyShot rendering software you know and love has a new name: KeyShot Studio.  We’re honored to provide the virtual studio where designers bring their creative visions to life, and our dedication to our rendering software is stronger than ever. Today, we are excited to announce the impactful release of KeyShot Studio version 2024.2. This update brings several significant enhancements designed to elevate your day-to-day workflow, including: 

• Upgraded Web Viewer now featuring export preview, material matching and texture baking 
• Customer-requested UI upgrades, including a more user-friendly Move Tool with customizable hotkeys  
• Import updates, including animation files 

 Learn more about recent upgrades to KeyShot Studio

Introducing KeyShot Hub for design teams

Over the two decades that industrial designers have relied on KeyShot, they’ve shared with us their workflow challenges and best practices. We’ve learned that there is a significant need for team workflow solutions, including help with managing scenes, library assets and renderings; version tracking and control; and keeping track of feedback during reviews. Designers have told us that they spend a lot of energy on these tasks, but they’d rather be focused on their designs. 

That’s why I’m thrilled to introduce KeyShot Hub, the new collaboration tool that keeps design teams together throughout the entire product design pipeline. Now you can rely on a team-integrated library for materials, textures, environments and scenes. Make your KeyShot Studio data even more useful by adding tags, connecting related assets and tracking versions, from initial creation to completion of the visualization process. With Hub, your team can better focus on what they do best: designing beautiful products and visuals that customers love. 

Learn more about the new KeyShot Hub 

Digizuite DAM software is now KeyShot Dock  

In April, Digizuite officially joined forces with KeyShot and now, Digizuite’s digital asset manager (DAM) is KeyShot Dock, featuring enhanced capabilities.  

Our customers are increasingly seeking solutions to capitalize on the shift to 3D visualization to captivate their audience with stunning product experiences. With KeyShot Dock, we aim to deliver a state-of-the-art DAM that embraces the power of 3D, centralizes asset management and ensures efficient distribution across all sales and marketing channels. 

KeyShot Dock continues to provide powerful integrations, automation and distribution capabilities tailored to your needs. Updates released today include:  

• Upload assets directly to an existing folder and streamline folder tagging. 
• Choose preferred asset format when sharing a single asset without creating a collection.  
• View asset crops directly on the asset card with crop indicator.  
• Follow on-demand download progress with status indicator. 
• Generate AI metadata on multiple assets at one time.

Going forward, you will see us introduce features tailored to 3D assets, while continuing to invest in capabilities that reduce cost and boost productivity. 

Learn more about KeyShot Dock 

Thank you for joining us on our journey

While we’re pleased to bring these updates to you today, we’re not taking a break – we are always working hard to provide the very best Product Design-to-Market Suite. As we keep our focus on the future, we are so grateful that you, and thousands of other customers around the world, continue to take part in the KeyShot story. Thank you for choosing KeyShot – we believe the best is yet to come!  

Talk about bringing your renderings to life! Our first design challenge of 2024 was all about making your renderings move with KeyShot’s animation features like Physics Simulation and Camera Keyframes. Our judges were delighted by the hundreds of submissions to this contest, and they narrowed it down to the top three winners plus an honorable mention.

Frank Brunetti

Luke Seaman

Bradley Brister

Giuseppe Cafarelli

Want More Design Inspiration?

Whether you’re a beginner or expert, you’re welcome in the KeyShot Luminaries community. It’s a free forum for KeyShot users, with fun and inspiring design challenges, opportunities to earn points for great prizes (like a free year of KeyShot Pro) and learning opportunities so you can uplevel your skills.