3D custom trampoline builder

The situation

Configurable products have a trap built into them. The moment you let customers combine options, you can end up promising a combination you can’t deliver. We wanted Springfree customers to design a custom trampoline, and we wanted every build the site offered to be one we could actually ship.

There’s an imagination problem too. A custom product is much easier to buy when you can see it, and no photo library covers every combination someone might come up with.

What I did

As Senior Product Manager I led the build of a 3D custom trampoline builder on our Shopify storefront. You put a trampoline together option by option and watch it take shape in 3D as you go, so by the time you reach checkout you’ve already seen the exact thing you’re buying.

The part I cared about most sat underneath. The builder checks NetSuite inventory in real time, with Celigo keeping Shopify and NetSuite in sync, so it only offers combinations that are actually in stock. However much fun someone’s having with the options, they can never order a build we can’t ship.

On the interface side, most of the work was restraint. Configurators get overwhelming fast, so the design effort went into keeping a complex purchase simple to move through, and we let the 3D view do the explaining that paragraphs of copy would otherwise have to do.

What changed

Custom builds reached 20% of e-commerce sales. A fifth of the online business now starts in an experience that didn’t exist before, and every one of those builds was checked against live inventory before a customer ever saw it.

The project also changed how I think about configurators. The 3D view gets the attention, and it earns it, but the real product decision was wiring the pretty part to the truth in the ERP. Customers get to make the trampoline theirs, and everything they can pick from actually exists.