3D Scanning Tests the Waters at Amazon

Most you probably remember when Amazon was just an online book company and that seemed like a crazy idea. Who wants to buy books online? Most people assumed half the joy of buying a new book lay in going to a bookstore and flipping through the pages of potential buys. Certainly Borders didn’t think this new internet thing was going to challenge it for sales.

It turned out that plenty of people were willing to buy books online, even more so when they received a discount. Customer reviews replaced flipping through pages. Success led to diversification, and now Amazon sells just about everything you can think of while Borders has vanished. More recently, Amazon added a 3D printing section to the site and now 3D scanners have popped up, ready for customer reviews. 

Reseller eQuality Tech is dipping its toe into Amazon by placing two of its more affordable 3D scanners on the website. The Rexcan CS+ 2.0 MP and Rexcan DS2 can now be found among the virtual stacks of books, racks of clothing, and shelves full of general consumer goods.

“3D scanning is an essential catalyst in the 3D printing revolution,” said Srdjan Urosev, president of eQuality Tech. “We have taken a progressive approach by offering our products on Amazon.com, which removes the mystique and anxiety traditionally surrounding pricing, functionality and support for 3D scanning. This is the type of transparency customers should expect in a maturing technology.”

Transparency might be the most interesting word in Urosev’s statement. Most companies don’t list the price of their 3D scanners, unless the price happens to be part of the appeal. To someone who has had access to the internet for most of his adult life, that seems like an archaic approach. Why hide the price? The old excuse was to make the competition sweat, but in the Information Age, that approach seems unlikely to succeed. Listed or not, the price is out there for anyone with passable search skills.

Consumers that visit Amazon expect to see a price upfront, and, like it or not, with its massive popularity and huge volume of traffic, that means Amazon is training consumers on how business is done online. Companies that stubbornly stick to the old way of doing things may find their bottom line suffers the consequences.

It isn’t always the best product that makes the sale. Presentation and documentation have just as much to do with a sale as quality. If Amazon-trained consumers are presented with two 3D scanners, and the first is open about its pricing, while the second is cagey, a fair number of buyers will spend more time looking at the first. Time spent often equates an engaged interest, which is half the battle in making a sale.

Below you’ll find a video about Amazon.

Source: eQuality Tech