As the largest hardware cooperative in the world, Ace Hardware knew its future growth depended on bridging the gap between its massive brick-and-mortar presence and the expectations of today’s digital shopper. But several obstacles stood in the way:

An in-store advantage that didn’t translate online. Ace’s stores gave customers confidence because they could see and touch products before buying. Online, that confidence was much harder to achieve.

High-consideration purchases. From grills to power tools to outdoor furniture, Ace’s product mix includes many items where size, fit, and look are crucial. Static photos and text specs weren’t enough to give shoppers the confidence they needed to convert.

Costly returns and lost conversions. Like many retailers with a strong brick-and-mortar footprint, Ace faced the same digital pressures seen across the home improvement industry: online return rates running 2–3x higher than in-store.

Rising shopper expectations. By 2022, reports across e-commerce retail were clear: customers expected accurate, interactive visualization tools. Without them, retailers risked losing attention.

‍Lean e-commerce resources. Despite their size, Ace ran a relatively lean e-commerce team. Scaling interactive content across hundreds of brands and thousands of SKUs wasn’t realistic without outside support. They needed a partner who could act as an extension of their team, making changes quickly and consistently without straining internal bandwidth.

In other words, Ace’s challenge wasn’t just “keeping up with technology.” It was ensuring that their digital experience could deliver the same level of confidence and clarity as their physical stores at scale, with limited internal resources, and without disrupting the way vendors already worked with them.

Ace turned to Epigraph to provide a solution that would deliver modern shopping experiences without overburdening their lean e-commerce team. Rather than a one-off project, the partnership was designed as a repeatable model that could scale across categories and vendors with minimal friction.

Together, Ace and Epigraph launched 3D + AR capabilities directly on AceHardware.com, with a focus on practicality:

• Photorealistic 3D models embedded directly on product pages
• Web-based augmented reality, allowing users to place products in their real environment with no app download required
• Mobile-first interface for frictionless exploration
• Brand-accurate presentation that preserves product detail and identity.
  
• Scalable deployment that allows rapid onboarding of new SKUs and vendor brands.
  

Beyond technology, Epigraph provided the operational model Ace needed; functioning as an extension of their e-commerce team and creating a repeatable framework that any vendor could plug into. This turned what might have been a resource drain into a scalable program, giving Ace efficiency and giving vendors confidence that their products would be consistently represented online.