Configure, Price, & Quote Best Product Configurators & Customization Software for 2024

Offering personalized experiences is more important than ever. The best product configurators and product customization software empower businesses to meet customer demands by allowing them to tailor products to their specific needs. Here's our comprehensive guide to the top solutions in 2024.

As we move further into the digital age, consumers expect more control over the products they purchase. Product customization not only enhances customer satisfaction but also builds brand loyalty. By integrating product configuration software, businesses can:

• Increase Sales: Personalized products often lead to higher conversion rates.
• Improve Customer Experience: Offering customization options meets customer desires for uniqueness.
• Stay Competitive: Brands that offer customization stand out in crowded markets.

1. Salesforce CPQ
   • A comprehensive solution that integrates seamlessly with Salesforce CRM, Salesforce CPQ offers robust product configuration, pricing, and quoting capabilities to streamline sales processes.
2. Tacton CPQ
   • Tacton CPQ is renowned for handling complex product configurations with ease. It provides advanced features like guided selling and 3D visualization, making it ideal for manufacturers.
3. Conga CPQ
   • Conga CPQ simplifies the quote-to-cash process with its user-friendly interface and powerful tools for product configuration, pricing, and quoting. It integrates well with existing CRM systems.
4. Zilliant CPQ
   • Specializing in AI-driven pricing and sales guidance, Zilliant CPQ helps businesses optimize pricing strategies and improve margins through intelligent automation.
5. Logik.io CPQ
   • Logik.io CPQ enhances existing CPQ solutions with advanced configuration capabilities. Its headless architecture allows for flexibility and scalability, making it suitable for complex product offerings.

Our top picks for the best product configurators allow for seamless product customization, boosting both sales and customer satisfaction.

Implementing product configuration software can lead to significant sales improvements:

• Shortened Sales Cycle: Instant customization reduces the time from interest to purchase.
• Upselling Opportunities: Suggesting add-ons and upgrades during customization increases order value.
• Reduced Errors: Automated configurations minimize mistakes in orders, saving time and resources.

Benefits of Customization for eCommerce

In the eCommerce sector, product customization offers numerous advantages:

• Enhanced Online Experience: Interactive configurators make shopping more engaging.
• Data Collection: Understand customer preferences through their customization choices.

• Brand Differentiation: Stand out by offering unique products that competitors don’t.

More businesses are beginning to notice the shift in customer desires.

Consumer trends show that buyers are leaning further toward custom products every day. Furthermore, as Millennials and Gen Z—two groups infamous for hating phone calls and growing up surrounded by technology—become a growing percentage of consumers, self-serve customer support solutions and guided selling become more popular as well.

The younger demographics are very tapped into the internet and technological progress. They know all about the latest advancements in eCommerce like omnichannel selling, AR/VR shopping, and even digital products like NFTs and virtual real estate. This gives them higher expectations than ever before.

To keep up with this trend of ever-evolving consumer expectations, increasing desires for custom items, and a level of technological independence that fosters reliance on product research and no need to talk to sales reps, businesses are moving toward business solutions that help them compete to meet consumer demand. Finding the best product configurators has become a priority for those businesses looking to lead the way.

3D product configurator software allows businesses to sell customized products, enable guided selling, have an omnichannel strategy, and vastly improve the customer experience. It also allows the use of dynamic pricing and real-time 3D visuals that update the view of the product with every selection to show the customer their finished product.  

It's important to find the best product configurator for your business as they're all made for different purposes and have varying features. Every business will have different needs depending on its industry and the products they sell. For example, a standard website product configurator wouldn't be the right configurator for a manufacturing business.

Sometimes, people looking for a product configurator will try to find an open-source product configurator online by Googling something like, "Python product configurator," or "Excel product configurator." However, if you're looking for the best product configurator, that's far from the best option.

Product configurator examples can help demonstrate just how useful and versatile they can be.

Not all of them have the same capabilities, but if you get the best online configurator for your business and follow product configuration best practices, you can get a huge competitive edge.

For example, let's say you're in B2B eCommerce. A business may come to you in need of a type of machinery. If they know what the machine needs to do but they don't know the exact kind they should get, an interactive product selector can ask them questions and present them with the best option(s).

If you've ever shopped for a laptop and taken a quiz asking how much memory you need, if you need it to be good for gaming or video editing, and the screen size you prefer, that's an interactive product selector as well. It's a great way to help customers find what they're looking for using guided selling.

A 3D product configurator allows users to configure an item with the parts and features they want, add on any additional elements, and customize the color and materials. Then, it displays 3D visuals for the product that allow them to view it from any angle.  

As eCommerce product configurators become non-negotiable for many businesses,

many decide to learn how to build a product configurator for themselves. Their goal is to get a 3D product configurator free of charge. When looking for a free 3D product configurator, open-source versions are often highly sought after.

Especially for people who know how to code a bit or are willing to learn, this seems like a good plan or at least a workable one. In their search for a free, open-source 3D product configurator, GitHub is probably the most common place to start looking.

It's not impossible to find an open-source option available. However, is it a good idea to try to find one that way? So many businesses are trying to find the best eCommerce product configurator on the market to blow the competition out of the water. However, the odds of even being in the running with a homemade configurator are slim to none.

Even if you only need a relatively simple product configurator, it's often the case that finding a free option causes more problems than it solves. They often don't work well, require a lot of maintenance, cause glitches and errors that negatively impact customers, and they don't have anywhere close to the capabilities a real, high-quality configurator does.

Product configurators for websites selling custom products can bring huge benefits.

However, that's only so long as you get an expert-made configurator. For those who get a 3D product configurator from open-source code, this likely won't be the case, at least not nearly to the same extent.

Getting a random product configurator free off some internet forum almost certainly means you won't be able to compete with the businesses that have well-made, next-generation, headless commerce logic engines. Even if you only need a simple product configurator, it's in your best interest to get the best one available.

If you're looking for the best product configurator for your business, it can help to look into comparison articles. You can narrow your search based on the criteria you need, like looking for comparison articles specifically discussing product configurators for WordPress.

When looking for inspiration or trying to determine the best option, it can help to look into other product configurator website examples. Seeing how they use their configurator can help you determine what features you need and which ones you don't.

There are several industries that have recently become far more reliant on configurators.

One of the most well-known is the car industry. The best car configurator apps have risen to the top due to the superior customer experience they provide. Customers were never the biggest fan of in-person dealerships anyway, so the concept really took off.

During the beginning of the pandemic when suddenly, nobody was able to shop in person, including at dealerships, sellers knew that getting the best car builder possible would help them stay afloat. However, the adoption started long before that. It's been going on for quite a while now. This is especially true for higher-end luxury car brands that tend to adopt new technology before the rest.

That's why luxury car configurators like Mercedes configurators and Caterham configurators are some of the most well-known and include some of the best configurators available. They tend to be of the highest quality and have the most features and benefits as well as the highest returns for sellers because the luxury car brands can afford to get the best car configurators on the market.  

There's a wide variety of configurators available.

There are JavaScript product configurators, three JS product configurators, 3D product configurators for WordPress, and countless others. No matter what kind of product configurator you need, you should have no problem finding the exact right one.

Just make sure to take the exact needs of your business, customers, and products into consideration before you decide on the best product configurator for your business. It's a very important tool for success and choosing the wrong one could really hurt your business.

You can get a free product configurator trial to test it out first before committing to any single option. This can help you determine if it's right for you before you make a purchase. You can contact the sales team at the company you're considering to see if they have any such free trial program.

However, while there's nothing wrong with getting a free trial, getting a free product configurator Excel template, a 3D product configurator from open-source code, or a 3D product configurator from GitHub will likely only hurt your business in the long run. If you don't invest in high-quality, purpose-built solutions for your business, then your results will reflect that as well.

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