Turnaround Innovision offers 360-degree product views, sees opportunities in e-commerce

Bangalore-based Turnaround Innovision Solutions Pvt Ltd, which offers 360-degree views of products, sees a big opportunity in e-commerce and e-tailing, besides online matrimony and marketplace platforms in India.

Founded in September 2012 by Sreepriya Koppula (CEO), an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Turnaround provides interactive views of products and builds automated systems to minimise the time and cost to make these models live on the Web for huge catalogues.

"Unlike in retail shopping where one has access to the actual product, it is the image which has to do the selling at an online shop. Usually multiple images are displayed for each product that help the buyer imagine how the actual product looks. We provide solutions to enhance these images to give consolidated product views which would take the online shopping experience to the next level.

Turnaround is also heading towards 3D product views by integrating the touch-and-feel effect (of fabrics, etc) on smartphones," Sreepriya said.

According to Sreepriya, online shopping lacks the touch-and-feel effect, though it helps in saving time and cost. So there is a lot of scope for innovation and creativity to make online shopping experience realistic and meaningful.

"Our products suite includes web and mobile apps to generate 360-degree views of products and people. These can be customised and integrated on marketplace and digital commerce platforms, social media and also on matrimonial sites," Sreepriya explained.

According to the company, it has bagged orders from two big e-com players to implement the product. "We are in the implementation stage with a couple of big e-commerce players which are operating in the ladies footwear, furniture and sports equipment categories. We will reveal the names once they go live."

Given the huge growth of e-commerce in India, Turnaround sees a huge potential in the country. "Our solutions are applicable to most products sold online. With so many e-commerce players catering to all domains operating in India, we see a huge opportunity. Also, many established retail manufacturers are looking at e-tailing. So there is a big opportunity there as well," Sreepriya said.

But what is the company's revenue model? "We provide licensed hardware and software to e-commerce companies," Sreepriya said.

Turnaround's four-member team operates from Bangalore and has studio tie-ups in Hyderabad. It is planning to expand to Delhi and Mumbai.

Turnaround is looking for angel investment. "We are looking for investors who can help us penetrate faster into the markets and fuel our research for advanced solutions like integrating the touch-and-feel factor," Sreepriya said.

"The customer needs to be provided with all tools and options to make online shopping experience as close as possible to real time. Our consolidated multi-dimensional images provide a complete view to buyers. This makes them confident of the products they choose, which would result in lesser product returns. As we deal with photographed images, there is no distortion or mismatch with the actual product," Sreepriya concluded.

Though there are a few firms which offer augmented reality solutions to e-commerce companies, there are not many players which provide 360-degree views of products. US-based Photospherix and KSCKreate offer similar solutions, but they don't have operations in India. This gives Turnaround a big opportunity.

California-based Fitiquette is not exactly into 360-degree product views, but offers a virtual fitting room technology, using which shoppers can create a virtual imitation of themselves to try on and buy apparels online. The company was recently acquired by Bangalore-based horizontal e-tailer Myntra.