Aircraft and yacht configurators: how a 3D configurator sells before the visit

A configurator is easy to sell as a toy: spin the aircraft, change the paint, watch the interior swap. The version that sells is less spectacular. It is a guided way for a buyer to make the choices that have to be made anyway, on his own time, and to hand the result to a salesperson as a spec rather than as a vague question.

This is what that version does, what it should and should not offer, and how it plugs into the sale.

What the buyer does before he calls

Before a serious buyer contacts an aircraft manufacturer or a yard, he has usually done the same work in private: read the brochure, compared two or three options, tried to picture the cabin, written down questions. The brochure is a PDF with tick boxes. The picture in his head is whatever the marketing photos showed, which is rarely the configuration he can afford.

That is the state we found at Aeroprakt, a light-aircraft manufacturer in Zakliczyn, Poland. Buyers of the A-32 Vixxen and the A-22 Foxbat chose engine, avionics and paint from a PDF, with nothing to look at while deciding. The configurator we are building replaces the tick boxes with the aircraft in 3D, paint and engine first, and ends in a spec sheet sent as a quote request. The manufacturer opens a request that already lists the choices, instead of a message that asks what the options are.

What to configure, and in what order

The order matters more than the number of options. Start with the choices that change the price and the picture the most, because those are the ones a buyer needs to settle before anything else feels real.

1. The version or hull. Model, length, engine class. One decision that frames the rest.
2. The exterior. Paint or gelcoat, and the few options that change the silhouette. This is where the buyer starts to feel ownership.
3. The layout. Seats, cabin or deck arrangement, the one or two alternatives that are actually offered.
4. Finishes and equipment. Materials, avionics or electronics packages, the options that fill a spec sheet.
5. The summary. Everything chosen, in the language of the order form, with a request button.

Every option shown should be one the sales team can actually deliver at a known price band. A configurator that offers a finish the yard has not built yet is a promise, and the visit will start with an apology.

What it must never promise

Three things sink configurators at this level. A live price that the sales team then has to walk back. Delivery dates. And photorealism that shows a material the buyer will later see in a different light and call a misrepresentation. The configurator should look excellent and say clearly that it is a representation: the exact finish is confirmed on the sample, the price on the quote, the date on the contract.

This is not caution for its own sake. A buyer who is later surprised does not blame the configurator. He blames the company, and the referral he would have made goes elsewhere.

Aircraft and yachts: same logic, different cadence

For an aircraft manufacturer the configurator sits close to the order: options are fixed, the spec sheet maps to a build slot. For a shipyard it sits earlier. A new build is negotiated over months, the client often cannot come to the yard when he wants to, and the people he sends need something better than a deck plan to react to. There the configurator is a presentation tool as much as a sales tool: layouts, finishes and options explored before a single flight is booked, and material the yard's brokers can put in front of a buyer without explaining anything twice. We go through that side of it on the yachts page.

How it feeds the sales team

The configurator earns its keep in what it sends, not what it shows. The request that lands with sales should carry the full configuration in the order-form language, the buyer's contact channel, where the buyer came from, and a link that reopens the exact configuration. Sales then answers a question the buyer has already half-answered, which shortens the first call and makes the second one about the visit.

• The spec, itemized, in the words the order form uses
• One contact channel and a preferred time
• The source of the visit, so the marketing spend can be judged
• A link that reopens the configuration for both sides
• A copy to the buyer, so he has the spec in his inbox before the call

What it costs to get wrong

The expensive failure is not a configurator that looks dated. It is one that is disconnected from the sale: a standalone showpiece whose result goes nowhere, so the buyer plays with it and then writes a plain email anyway. Build the request path first and the visuals second. The visuals are what people remember; the request path is what sells.

If you are a manufacturer or a yard weighing this, a 15-minute call is enough to tell you whether a configurator would move your sale, and where in the process it would sit.