The adoption of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is changing the way consumers interact with brands. They allow the brands to deeply personalise their services enabling them to cater to specific needs of customers.
Retail companies are not an exception either. They strategically use these advancements to manipulate customers’ perception of their brand. Technological advancements are catapulting the retail industry forward into an exciting new future. These innovations are powerfully revolutionising buyer behaviour and overall shopping experience.
Did You Know?
- With rising internet penetration which pulls customers towards online shopping along with lucrative deals and discounts, the E-retail market size has tripled over the last 3 fiscals.
- E-retail market size is all set to surge 250% in the next 3 years.
- Despite growing at a breakneck speed and having an enormous growth potential, e-retail accounted for a mere 1.5% of the total retail sales (organized and unorganized) in the last fiscal.
The e-retailers were initially gaining market shares through discounts. However, they are now centralizing Geographical diversification, business realignment and customer stickiness.
“Current Low Penetration of e-retail gives room for exponential growth in the total retail sector”
Focus Areas of Retailers in the Coming Years
- Enhancing the In-Store Experience
- Bringing the In-Store Experience to Consumers’ Homes
- Incorporating Augmented Reality into their Products
Opportunities for AR in Retail
In Retail world, the market is flooded and brands battle it out fiercely to gain competitive edge. There is No monopoly on consumer markets and every company offers similar to each other with a herd mentality. In addition, there is an ever-changing customer perception/sentiment about brands. The only differentiator would be the shopping experience.
- Improving the overall Shopping Experience
With booming technologies like Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality, the brands hope to elevate the overall shopping experience for the buyers letting them gain the competitive edge.
Example 1: Furniture shoppers might like a nightstand or sofa displayed on their website, but often wonder how it might fit in their living space. To solve this problem for consumers, low-cost furniture retailer IKEA introduced an AR app to help e-commerce shoppers visualize how their furniture might look in their homes while shopping online. This use of AR has streamlined the buyer’s way into buying IKEA furniture, as they can seamlessly go from viewing the items to its purchase in just a few easy steps.
Example 2: In 2015, automobile makers Volvo partnered with Tech giant Microsoft to use Microsoft HoloLens, a MR technology. Volvo showrooms used this technology to improve the car-buying experience for their customers.
HoloLens mixes AR with VR and enables the user to see the hologram of a virtual object (the car) in a real space and to interact with it. The technology is embedded in a wireless headset that is worn by the user. Through Microsoft HoloLens, customers visiting Volvo’s showrooms can browse colors, features and options, but most importantly, they can experience virtually how the technology embedded in the car works. For example, the HoloLens gives the customer an idea of how safety features such as auto braking work in action.
2. Keeping the Customers Hooked
Augmented reality works as an effective way to keep users hooked to something for a long time. Hence allowing the Customer to have a better experience rather than viewing the products through 3D modelling. The inherently immersive nature of this tech enables the retailers to get user’s attention instantly and keep them hooked on the app. This advantage of Augmented Reality can be used to transit users from one stage of buyer funnel to another also allowing the Retailers to entertain them and also to advertise strategically.
Example 1: Last Christmas, Cadbury made use of AR to bring the Holiday season to life with its Advent Heroes event. Cadbury distributed their special Holiday Heroes calendars to consumers that were to be used in conjunction with an AR app developed by them. Every day, consumers could view the specific date on their calendar through the app, and be rewarded with fun AR experiences like holiday themed selfies of them that are themed based on Cadbury chocolates, candies, and other products. This helped people stay engaged with the Cadbury brand each and every day of the Advent calendar, and increased their social media reach with a corresponding #Cadvent Instagram campaign.
Example 2: Pokémon GO is a geo-location game, which makes real surroundings as battlefield. You catch and train a Pokémon as their pet and then fight other players and their “pets”. This app was developed with a strategy to keep its users down the streets.
3. AR beyond Branding
It was really interesting when I came to know about #LeapMotion who have raised the bar of AR usage to an all new different level. Their idea radiated my thoughts on AR/VR which is all about just overlaying 3D objects, redirection urls or videos or just a CMS to make all these possible. The question was whether there will be a barrier breaker to think out of the box. And here we have LeapMotion’s App. With gesture control, one can have complete control or a fully augmented app which pretty much functions as a complete App. Gesture control SDKs allow developers to create apps which immerse consumer’s right into the augmented/virtual world rather than just an overlay.
Example: https://youtu.be/ziY5UVNKnas , https://youtu.be/9KCA44GZRQg
Few other Brands that push AR hard
1. Shopify rings up AR Shopping for the web: Shopify’s aim is to enable retailers to upgrade their web stores with Augmented Reality rather than develop mobile apps and try to persuade customers to download those apps. On Shopify’s platform, images with USDZ files associated with them on retail websites, will carry an ARKit badge indicating that the pictured item can be viewed in augmented reality.
2. Facebook’s News Feed AR ads will enable advertisers to insert AR camera effects like virtual product try-ons and promotional 3D content, directly into their advertising section.
3. Snapchat offers Shoppable AR for e-commerce and other calls-to action, video Snap Ads that lead into AR experiences, and Lens Studio for creating AR content.
To conclude, I personally believe that these technologies give us that extra edge to keep our customers engaged and loyal, them being the very reason why companies prevail. AR is just another opportunity or a way to stay connected with your current/future consumers. Whether it is Augmented/Mixed/Virtual, the reality we know is changing, brands who fail adapt to changes might not even exist with the herd.
