3D for e-commerce4 min read

Does 3D increase online sales, judged from published data

Where the 94 percent figure, the Rebecca Minkoff numbers and the other quoted statistics come from, what each measured and how to test it on your own shop.

By CharpstAR · 4 Oct 2023 · Updated 22 Sept 2026

Part of 3D models for e-commerce: the complete guide

OCT2023

Does 3D increase online sales: the evidence checked

Four sets of figures carry most of the case for 3D in e-commerce: Shopify's 94 percent, the Rebecca Minkoff numbers, the Gunner Kennels return figure and the Oakywood order values. Below, each sits next to its source and what it did and didn't measure.

The 94 percent figure

The claim is that products with 3D or AR content convert 94 percent more often than products without. It comes from Shopify, posting on 23 September 2020, reporting on its own merchant data.

It compares products that had 3D or AR content with products that didn't, across Shopify stores. It wasn't a randomised test. Merchants who invest in 3D usually sell higher-consideration goods, tend to run better product pages overall and put the models on their best sellers, and all of that widens the gap. What the figure supports is that 3D content went with higher conversion across those stores. The size of the gap includes all of those differences.

The Rebecca Minkoff numbers

According to Shopify's write-up, shoppers who viewed a product in AR were 65 percent more likely to purchase, and shoppers who interacted with a 3D model were 44 percent more likely to add to cart and 27 percent more likely to place an order.

These figures compare shoppers who chose to open the viewer with shoppers who didn't, on one brand's site. Nearly all published 3D conversion data has that weakness. Opening a 3D viewer is a sign of intent, so part of the lift comes from the model and part from interested people clicking on things. A proper test would split pages randomly with and without the feature, and that didn't happen here.

The Gunner Kennels return figure

Shopify's article also reports a 5 percent reduction in return rates after Gunner Kennels added AR.

This figure has fewer problems. Return rate is measured after the fact across all orders, including shoppers who never clicked anything, so self-selection matters less, and the number is attached to a named company.

The Oakywood figures

Shopify's 3D e-commerce article reports average order value up 458 percent in Germany, 232 percent in Switzerland and 84 percent in the UK, and a move from almost no custom orders to roughly 200 to 300 a month.

These are configurator figures, with no AR involved, and a 458 percent change in AOV almost certainly reflects a change in what the company sold. Adding configurable custom products to a catalogue almost always raises average order value. The figures describe a configurator creating a new product line, and they get quoted as if 3D had lifted the price of the existing one.

Where all of these figures come from

They point the same way; 3D and AR content goes with better conversion in every dataset anyone has published. The datasets behind them are observational, produced by a platform or a vendor, and split on whether the shopper interacted with the viewer. We've looked for a large independent randomised study of 3D on product pages and haven't found one. The published percentages are upper bounds for that reason.

How to measure it on your own site

You can do this without a research team.

Pick six to ten comparable products in one category, with similar price and traffic.
Add 3D to half. Leave the other half alone.
Run for at least four weeks, or until each product has a few hundred sessions.
Compare conversion rate and return rate between the two groups of products. Do not compare viewer-openers with non-openers.

The last step matters most. Comparing people who opened the viewer with people who didn't produces something like the 94 percent figure again, with the same flaw.

Client reports and the return rate

Sweef tells us the configurator cut the number of questions before purchase and made a large catalogue sellable. Nobody has measured that, so we don't put a percentage on it.

The cost of a return is a figure you already hold. The National Retail Federation, with Appriss Retail, put the US online return rate at 17.6 percent of sales in 2023, worth 247 billion dollars. On a high-value product the cost of a model is covered if it prevents a small share of those returns, before conversion comes into it.

Running the test on one product

We build one 3D model free, so it can go on a real product page and be measured against a comparable product. Send us a product, or see what we build and what it costs for the scaled version.