Why eCommerce’s Digital Product Grid Is Reaching Its Limit

For more than thirty years, online retail has relied on the familiar digital product grid, designed for an internet that today no longer exists.

Faster networks, personalisation engines and endless UX refinements have all tried to lift eCommerce performance, yet the grid continues to lag behind physical retail on the fundamentals: basket size, product discovery, and impulse purchasing.

These issues aren’t caused by the internet. They stem from the limitations of the product grid itself - a search-led, thumbnail-driven model that shapes online shopper behaviour in narrow ways the in-store physical shelf never does.

In our new article for Retail Times, Buzz 3D explains why further grid optimisation now delivers diminishing returns, and why retailers are facing increasing pressure (though many may not recognise it yet) to move into “immersive commerce”: shelf-based digital experiences for online shopping that mirror how shoppers behave in real stores.

From interactive 3D shelves to realistic planogram-driven layouts, these interfaces unlock a more natural, realistic online shopper experience better suited for a modern internet, and far better aligned with real-world sales - behaviour the old product grid simply can’t match.

👉 Here’s the full article: “The digital product grid is killing sales, says visualisation expert Buzz 3D”

Marc Foreman, Co-CEO