How to add 3D to your online store

Simplest: Shopify shows the model itself

Shopify takes a 3D model as product media. Your team uploads the file in the product, the same place as other media. Shopify shows it on the page and opens AR on iPhone and Android, if your theme supports 3D.

What you give up: the look and the controls are Shopify's. The customer turns the product, but cannot change colour or parts on it.

Good for one product in one version. Keep the file under 15 MB so it stays as you made it.

Our viewer: one link on your product page

We deliver the viewer as one link. It can carry the colours, the light, the real dimensions and AR. Nothing in your theme depends on us.

Your team can place it alone. Grau got the Salt lamp viewer as one link, ready for their Shopify page.

Or we place it. On Shopify, your team accepts one access request from us. We work on a copy of your theme and send a preview. Nothing goes live before you approve it.

If an agency runs your theme, tell it where the 3D button sits. If the theme changes, the button has to be carried over.

A configurator: the chosen version goes to the cart

Here the customer builds the product, and the exact version must reach the order. That is where most of the work sits.

At Dozze, the choice travels to the cart as an image of the bottle that was ordered. The buyer and the store look at the same bottle.

Later changes are small when the setup is right. Globe-Trotter runs eight configurators. When they asked to allow only one position for initials on a collaboration, it was one new setting in the link.

1. 01Your options and prices in the shop, one per choice the customer makes.
2. 02What the order shows your team: an image, a code, or both.
3. 03Who changes what later: a new colour, a new product, a price.

Agree these three answers in writing before the build starts.

WooCommerce and Magento: our link works there too

Neither has 3D built in the way Shopify does. Both have add-ons from other companies, each with its own rules and fees.

Our viewer does not need an add-on. It is one link, so it goes into any page that can hold one. Most of our store work so far is on Shopify.

Before you buy an add-on, ask whether the model file stays yours if you stop paying.

What your team does, in every case

Four steps, in this order. None needs a developer on your side.

1. 01Name one person who gives access and approves.
2. 02Give access: one request on Shopify, or a login on other platforms.
3. 03Approve the preview on a copy of your theme.
4. 04Say who changes the page later, you, your agency or us.

Send us these four in one email before the work starts.