By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2019
Up to now if you wanted to know what one of our frame mouldings looks like you had very few options:
None of the above would be particularly satisfactory solutions. Rob might be risking marital disharmony. And a consequence of customers being unable to perceive the topography of any moulding was that they could easily be disappointed at the result.
That’s all changed now that EasyFrame has adopted 360°-spin moulding imagery. Because intending customers can get a very real feel of height, width and depth before they make decisions that they might have to live with for decades. And it just takes a single click on an image for website visitors to activate their own show.
From the 3rd quarter of 2019, and that’s autumn for you and me, Rob Zanna and the crew at EasyFrame will be creating a series of high-quality 360° images, in effect a series of photographs stitched together so that the eye cannot see the joins. They’ll do this for every frame moulding, which is quite a task as you can imagine. But the end-result will be that customers can get a far better perception of their intended purchases. They’ll be able to do this by going from one 3D view to another, giving each sample of moulding a spin so that its detail can be virtually seen from the front, back and sides, and whittling down the choices (don’t forget that EasyFrame has a truly massive selection that only gets bigger!) Ultimately this has to impact on customer satisfaction, always a priority (as if you didn’t know it).
The new imaging is, you may realise, just one of the attractions of the extremely smart new website at www.easyframe.co.uk. It’s a site that sports not only utilitarian facilities like the 360° showcasing, facilities that market and sell EasyFrame’s products. It’s a site that also rather philanthropically devotes a lot of space, and the underlying investment to fill it with high-quality content, to fine art as well as DIY tips and pieces designed to inspire all-comers to frame something interesting. www.easyframe.co.uk/NewsArticle/roy-lichtensteins-pop-art, www.easyframe.co.uk/NewsArticle/frame-academy-x (about picture-rails) and www.easyframe.co.uk/NewsArticle/brass-rubbings are, as I write, three of the latest examples.
This new development of course also fits with EasyFrame’s recent acquisitions of two other technologies, namely the A + AUTOMATION T2400 state-of-the-art machine that automates important parts of the framing process and their Novex high-end automated mount-cutting machine. Both of them transformed an already-advanced factory when they arrived earlier in 2019. And EasyFrame’s Rob Zanna, who tirelessly tracks down any technology that will give the business an advantage over rivals, feels that this new 360° showcase capacity is, in its own way, as important as investments in other fixed assets such as the aforementioned production-orientated capital equipment.
The new facilities amount to being:
The hardware and software are, as you’d expect, synchronised. They’re designed to dampen and eradicate wobbles, centre the mouldings so they spin around a central axis, rotate accurately, and do all of this (with a lot more, to be honest, but we don’t yet fully understand it so you don’t need to) so quickly that it is worth it for EasyFrame to invest the time working through its entire stock of framing materials.
This innovation, despite the complexity of its construction, is a total doddle for the consumer to use. As you browse the EasyFrame site you will find symbols that look like this above or below the flat 2D images of mouldings:
Click on each symbol and it will allow you to have a walk-round panoramic view. It’s responsive. And it is optimised for use on mobile phones and tablets as well as PCs, laptops and the like. And it’s so good, with the topography of each rotating view clearly lit and tangible, that you can almost touch each image. That tactility makes the system a game-changer. And why it became a ‘must-have’ for EasyFrame.
Such purchases are invariably made on the basis of costs being outweighed by benefits. And on that note Rob Zanna is adamant that EasyFrame will quickly achieve payback with the new panoramic kit.
“Yes this is another significant capital investment for EasyFrame and it’s not a cheap technology. Moreover this requires a lot of hands-on work, initially, to capture the images. All of that has to be costed into the exercise. But my research tells me that visitors to the new website will spend longer on each view of products. They’ll realise that EasyFrame has stolen a march on other framers. They’ll be more likely to identify, locate and select the mouldings they really want. And they will be more likely to be satisfied which means they’ll come back for more and recommend us to others!”
EasyFrame doesn’t muck around. And the new 360° showroom facility is further proof of that.
If you are framing something precious it’s always worth going straight to a professional framer like EasyFrame for advice. To that end EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and emailable via sales@EasyFrame.co.uk.
Article Posted: 28/08/2019 09:25:23