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Interactive Imagery Helps Wiggle Bike Brand Boost Online Sales

Product discovery and the lack of in-person visuals are two selling hurdles that online-only retailers must overcome. The challenges of e-Commerce intensify when more sophisticated products are involved.

Wiggle, a brand specializing in high-end bicycles and cycling equipment, enhances the online user experience and boosts e-Commerce sales with 3D, 360-degree spin imagery. The technology enables consumers to rotate and view a product image from several different angles, stop at any point, and zoom in on a chosen feature.

“We had a number of high-value items that were not being well served by a limited selection of front, top and side shots,” said Damian Koblintz, Site and Search Manager at Wiggle, in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. Cycles, helmets, running and cycling shoes, clothing and sunglasses are among the Wiggle product offerings being “spun.”

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The interactive image technology, provided by SpinMe, “saves time by allowing us to produce single-shot images of selected products, where previously we’d need four or five,” Koblintz explained. “There’s also a real ‘oh, that’s cool!’ factor, which increases dwell time on pages. The approach helps separate us from our competitors and, for those products we’ve spun, has resulted in a healthy sales lift.”

The digital product images may be “spun” at the SpinMe studio or in house. Wiggle started the photographic process with off-site production and then brought the operation in house in late 2012. The on-site Wiggle photography studio uses the SpinMe FotoRobot hardware technology and SpinMe Studio Professional imaging software to create the precision 360-degree, interactive web site imagery.

As the Wiggle brand customer base continues to diversify across demographics, “one shot is useable in all territories, since images don’t need to be translated or localized,” Koblintz explained. For example, in 2012, Wiggle launched 11 new web sites for overseas customers. “The high-quality, interactive images gave us an early boost in establishing a presence in new geographies even before we officially launched the web sites.”

Spin images are provided in Adobe Flash or JavaScript viewer format for multi-device compatibility. With the rapid rise of mobile, the 3D, 360-dregree images “have been very useful,” Koblintz reported. “Mobile visitors are able to drag around a single product image to view all aspects, rather than having to select and load different shots.”

Customers will come to expect this sort of imagery, said Koblintz, “especially as images in general continue to consume more product page real estate. Being a relatively early adopter of this technology has given us the opportunity to push ahead.”

Now a global eTailer, Wiggle started in the 1920s as a small independent bike shop in Portsmouth, England. The company employs 400 people, most of whom are sports enthusiasts. This gives Wiggle the opportunity to test cycling innovations thoroughly before embracing a new product and applying the advanced e-Commerce imagery solution.

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