Cart Visualiser

Let customers visualise products together

Allowing people to visualise the contents of their cart together can increase conversion rates by improving buyer's confidence in their product choices. It can also increase the number of items customers order by appealing to their need to "complete the set".

There are 2 common approaches which suit different types of products...

Superimposed Products

Cart contents are represented using transparent-background product images layered on top of one another. This approach is perfect when there is a main product with optional accessories, for example boats, cars, toys, and electronics.

Coastal Distribution, a power boat distributor, used this feature to allow people to "build a boat" and see their chosen outboard motor, trailer, and canopy actually on their boat model. See it in action →

Adjacent Products

Here cart contents are represented using product images that are positioned relative to one another as they would be arranged in the physical world. This approach works especially well for modular products that are laid-out together such as furniture, kitchen cabinets, floating docks, storage systems and clothing apparel.

Dam Docks, a floating dock system manufacturer, used this feature to allow customers to "design a dock" and see modular dock sections together in plan view in their own environment. See it in action →

How it works

Typically each product has a custom image field used for the visualisation and either pre-defined positions for each product image, or the ability for users to specify the order and orientation for each product they add to cart.

The visualisation is done by looping through cart contents and plotting each image in the correct position (or the correct layer in the case of superimposed images). All users need to do to build up the complete visual is add products to their cart.

The benefit of using the cart contents for a build/design tool is that users don't need to login, download or save their finished design anywhere. The design can be recreated based on the cart contents, which persist for around 10 days on Shopify.

Cart Visualisation can also be combined with Step-by-step Ordering, where users are led through product choices in a pre-defined sequence.