Why the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Should Invest in its Digital Assets

Product imagery and other digital assets are fundamental for a successful e-commerce strategy in the automotive aftermarket industry. They are a necessity for companies that want to stay competitive and a typical requirement of most aftermarket retailers. Our work with clients such as Bosch, Delphi and Truck-Lite, has given us deep insight into how 360° & 3D spin photography offers the industry a seamless process that can quickly create, store and distribute product imagery, while complying to AAIA industry standards.

It’s no surprise that including an image with an online product will boost sales and reduce returns, as it provides details that increase shopper confidence. So what happens when you enhance those images with 360° & 3D product photography, adding more visual information to your digital assets? More sales and fewer returns!  In fact, aftermarket companies can expect to increase online conversions substantially, sometimes as much as 30%, as well as reducing online returns by up to 50%.

Shooting in 360° & 3D typically involves an output of 24 to 72 separate still images, stitched together and then served up in a viewer. This capability allows you to shoot a product once in spin and still meet PIES requirements, including all planogram, web and marketing imagery.

Meeting PIES requirements is just one asset challenge for the automotive aftermarket, which is made up of millions of products. Depending upon organizational requirements, manufacturers, retailers and trading partners distribute and receive digital assets in a range of formats. Maintaining an up-to-date content creation, management and distribution library of digital assets is business critical.  Having access to multiple formats, in that centralized content management solution is a critical step to reducing resource costs and increasing efficiencies.

Once the need for enhanced content is identified, automotive aftermarket companies now have the daunting task of creating and ingesting the assets into their workflow. In order to stay lean while keeping up with e-commerce demands, many companies are looking to automate their asset creation to increase efficiency and accuracy. Automation and productivity are key to a properly implemented asset creation workflow. Maximum productivity can be achieved by automating complex image formatting, naming and distribution tasks, as well as incorporating automated 360° & 3D spin photography using robotic hardware and state of the art workflow software. This increase in throughput, many times 3x to 4x a day over traditional methods, allows for more products to be photographed and more digital assets to be created and made ready for distribution.

By investing in their digital assets using 360° & 3D automated workflows, aftermarket companies have the ability to pair enhanced visual content gained from robotic hardware and workflow software, with a real-time management solution, keeping them lean and competitive while improving their bottom line.