Ever envisioned, visiting a store and virtually trying a product from your couch would be possible? Today, it is.
The digital world is metamorphosing into a more realistic sphere with every tick of the clock. What once seemed part of a sci-fi movie is blatantly coming true to the world!
Technology is incessantly reshaping the world in ways we could have never imagined. Among the latest and most intriguing advancements is augmented reality, a technology that is spearheading the future and promising even more astonishing developments in the decades ahead.
An industry with subtle and constant strides toward augmented reality is the retail line. In this blog, we will uncover some latest endowments made by this technology in the retail industry.
But first, let’s understand what augmented reality is.
What Is Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality is a technology that overlays digital elements onto the physical real-world environment to generate enhanced and more informative visuals. The digital elements it uses can be images, videos, or 3D models, that are visible through specialized augmented reality glasses or headsets.
Augmented reality differs from virtual reality because it doesn’t create a virtual environment, instead, it enhances the live view by adopting techniques, such as computer vision, depth sensing, motion tracking, and display systems.
How Is AR Affecting the Retail Industry?
According to Statista, by 2025, around one-third of shoppers in the United States will have used AR-powered technologies when buying products online.
In recent years, the retail industry has experienced a profound impact due to the emergence of augmented reality (AR). It revolutionized the way retailers engage with their customers, transforming traditional shopping experiences into immersive and interactive journeys.
Interactive product demos, in-store navigation, gamified experiences, virtual showrooms, and personalized recommendations are some fascinating features of augmented reality that buyers in the retail industry are using the most.
How Does AR Boost Sales?
Augmented reality helps shoppers indulge in more informative and immersive shopping, resulting in enhanced sales. Furthermore, benefits like enhanced customer-product interaction and more buyer engagement also help in the process.
Let’s now learn more about the direct reasons responsible for contributing to the swerve in sales catalyzed by augmented reality.
Confident Purchase
Services like virtual-try-on are fabulously converting online leads into sales, making purchases more confident and less skeptical. For instance, if an individual is frisking an online store for clothes and accessories, comparing size charts will no longer be required. They can virtually try it on and be decisive.
Better Product Information
Usually, shopping is a hustle where a user at times skips highly critical information. To rectify that AR overlays abundant digital information onto a real-time view. It informs a customer and guides them toward an informed purchase. Furthermore, this feature removes the bar of misleading or misinforming a consumer, falsely compelling them to buy a product.
More Social Media Buzz
From product visualization and virtual try-ons to in-store navigation, AR empowers customers with extraordinary shopping experiences that they eagerly share with their peers across online social platforms. The recommendations from these satisfied customers carry a higher level of credibility, influencing prospective shoppers in the online realm.
Reduce Product Returns
The reason behind frequent product returns is the dissatisfaction of consumers. Augmented reality aims to change the passage of traditional shopping and transform it into a well-oriented and structured buying experience to bring more clarity into their decisions and reduce the number of product returns after purchases.
Stay Competitive
Retail enterprise owners are assimilating augmented reality to leap ahead and stay competitive in the market of cut-throat competition. Today, buyers have an ingrained fascination with advanced services that meet their expectations and demands effortlessly. Therefore, to entice more buyers to their brand, business owners are using augmented reality to claim and allure more customers than their competitors.
The Future of Augmented Reality In The Retail Industry
Augmented reality has a promising future in the retail industry.
Integration with the Internet of Things (IoT)
In the upcoming time, augmented reality will become more comprehended due to its synchronization with IoT-enabled objects. This advancement will allow customers in the future to seamlessly shop through various interconnected physical objects.
AR-powered Virtual Shopping Assistants
AR-powered virtual shopping assistants will ease customers’ shopping journeys by replicating the concurrent human attendants in retail stores. These virtual assistants will not only guide buyers and facilitate their shopping quest but also recommend personal suggestions.
Advanced Visual Realism
Advanced visual realism is another facet of online shopping through augmented reality that is bound to increase in the next few years. This improvement will embed the interaction in a customer’s mind and they are likely to head back to experience the same whenever the opportunity begins.
Social AR Shopping Experiences
According to insights from Forbes by Jenna Sereni, CEO and Founder of HandsDown, a platform to shop for communities and friends, 74% of people are annoyed with social media ads and fake product reviews written by bots. It indicates buyers find reviews from anonymous people as forged.
According to another study by Forbes, 38% of consumers explore brands suggested by friends and families. It is highly anticipated that online shopping through augmented reality will give opportunities to peers on social media to shop together and gain real-time feedback about products. This collective social shopping will make the experience more enjoyable and memorable.
Advanced AR analytics
Mostly, marketing strategists see large amounts of data as a roadblock because they face difficulty in deciphering heaps of data to uncover trends. More advanced analytics, such as predictive modeling, machine learning, and process automation will help retail owners to process large sets of data. Furthermore, advanced AR analytics will also carve effective data-driven business planning and strategizing.
Conclusion
Augmented reality has transformed the way buyers used to shop and buy traditionally. Now, a customer can turn their shopping experience into a more lifelike one with the assistance of augmented reality. Soon, the technological world will foresee a vigorous advancement in online shopping that will eliminate the thinnest line between the physical and virtual store environment. To stay ahead of the competition, Jellyfish Technologies can provide technical expertise in the arena of augmented reality and its well-oriented usage in the retail industry. We offer cutting-edge technologies that help you advance your retail business with more customer engagement and satisfaction.
