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Materials Calculator for Product Pages [Video Demo]

Materials Calculator

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Life is hard. As adults, we constantly have to make calculated decisions about the way we live our lives. Projects like refinishing your bathroom, building a deck, or reupholstering furniture can be taxing enough, without also having to do math while you shop. Shopping should be fun and happy; formulas and calculations are not. Our developers have created a Materials Calculator tool for your product page so your users can shop without the aggravation.

Prevent Errors with an Automated Materials Calculator

In the efforts to create a smooth and impressive user experience for your site, you want to offer your customers everything they need to get the job done. Providing detailed instructions in the product description or in an information tab is great, but that leaves a lot of room for user error and frustration. 

You’ve likely received at least one of the following calls:

  • “Can you help me figure out how much product I need to buy?”
  • “Help! I didn’t buy enough the first time!”
  • “Can I return part of my order? I purchased too much.”

Depending on your returns policy and customer service wait time, these scenarios may lead to negative reviews, abandoned orders, or loss in customer retention. 

With the Materials Calculator present on the product page, your shoppers can easily buy the right amount of product the first time, without having to use formulas, equations, or conversions.

Who Is This Materials Calculator For?

You may be wondering if our Materials Calculator tool would work for your products. We get it – not every cool feature works for every store. What exactly does this calculate? 

Product page example

There are a number of ways this can be put to use, all depending on how you determine the need for your items. Here are some examples of how this could be used:

  • Bolts of fabric. Whether for large outdoor tasks, hobby or craft projects, or industrial-level work, converting square inches/feet into bolts of fabric can be intimidating.
  • Skeins and spools. Wire, yarn, cord. Running out midway through a project can cause serious budget and timeline issues, or even just wreck a sweater! 
  • Pails/jugs of product. Setting material, grout, varnish, and many other construction supplies depend on the area for application.
  • Sheets of stone or tile. Flooring, patios, countertops, pools – the materials for these jobs can be extremely expensive if the calculations are done wrong.
  • Clothing sizes. Your shoppers enter their measurements.
  • Prepared food. Make sure your customers order a large enough cake, or a big enough sandwich platter for their guests.
  • Pool or pond treatments. Adding any powder, liquid or tablets to a small body of water in which people or animals swim needs specific calculations.
  • Essential oils. Soap, perfume, or other personal care products need precise and finite measurements of oils in order to be safely used.

How Does it Work?

When you choose to add the Materials Calculator to your site, you provide us with the formula and we do the rest. The feature is customized with your branding and site design details so it fits in flawlessly. You can tweak and customize the messaging to suit your products, and support your users as they shop.

Materials Calculator

Once it’s up and running, the customer can choose to enter their values into the fields of the calculator, and apply the suggestions to their order. It gives your shopper the confidence to make a big purchase, while also allowing for flexibility; ultimately, the purchase quantity is still in your shopper’s hands. 
If you think your customers (and your staff) could benefit from adding the Materials Calculator to your site, let us know and we can provide a quote.

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