Largest office product and furniture retailer to market its products online using GDL objects
BUDAPEST, October 11, 2001 – GDL Technology today announced that it has signed an agreement with EON Reality/realityBUY for an exclusive contract to develop GDL objects for Office Depot. Office Depot is the largest retailer of Office products in the world with 850 stores in the United States and the second largest Internet retailer in the world after Amazon.com. Office Depot booked $850 million in online sales last year. This year, online sales are expected to grow nearly double to $1.5 Billion, representing 20% of the company’s overall sales.
For this large-scale project, EON Reality/realityBUY will supply the on-line configuration for Office Depot products and GDL Technology will supply the object technology. More than 2,500 products will be represented as GDL objects and published online. The parametric nature of GDL will make updates and maintenance much easier. One single GDL object can describe a whole family of products.
Through realityBUY’s online interactive 3D configurations, customers can see how a specific product will look in a real-life setting and can help them avoid costly mistakes that would be difficult to undo without the aid of 3D interactivity and visualization tools.
“By switching from static 3D files (3Dstudio) to GDL objects, we have been able to get an intelligent source of models that we can use for our interactive visualization solution,” said Paul Scholtes, president of realityBUY. “The interactive 3D images we have created for Office Depot allow customers to configure a product and try it out before they buy, giving customers a much clearer idea of what they are about to purchase.”
“We chose to use realityBUY to create and add three-dimensional images to our website because we realize the importance of visualization in customers’ online buying experience,” said Monica Luechtefeld, executive vice president of e-commerce for Office Depot. “We wanted to give them more than just a photograph of the product they are considering. We have always been the leader in providing great products and service to our customers. This is a continuation of our commitment to doing just that.”
“When completed, this is expected to be the largest branded 3D CAD compatible catalog, and we are very pleased that realityBUY, EON and Office Depot are committed to working with us on a project of this magnitude,” says Stefan Larsson, vice president of marketing for GDL Technology. “We have been preaching how important GDL is for future success of e-commerce in the interior and building industry, now we are starting to see the market acceptance for it.”