Augmented Reality is no more a buzz word for Internet
Retailers. With the advent of this concept, the trend has changed the way customers shop. People are trying out products before making any purchases. It is really making shoppers life a bit easy to
pick , try and choose their products while sitting at home.
After seeing the interest among customers, many internet retailers have started mixing virtual world to the real world i.e. implementing augmented reality applications and making the life simpler for online buyers. But we wanted to go deeper and see whether the conversion is happening. Whether Augmented reality is really helping in purchases to happen.
Augmented Reality is still in a nascent stage. It will take
5-10 years’ time to reach to the stable form. Having said that, AR applications
are gaining momentum in retail market because of exponential growth of
smartphones, Tablets , QR codes, RFID tags, GPS , Digital camera technology and real time analytics.
Concepts like Virtual Dressing Room, Placing furniture in a vacant room etc. are
picking up fast in retail segment mainly
because of the spiral growth in smartphones and Tablets. Smartphones have some
real challenges related to screen size.
Tablets have an advantage compare to the smartphones due to bigger screen and
easy to build native apps that are providing
a good user experience as stated in the earlier post Couch Commerce for online retailers.
Overall, for conversion to happen, the key is - right Information
at right place. Customers should get more information while buying complex
product using AR applications in store. Also in virtual dressing room while
trying a particular product, customer should be able to see the detailed
information about size, price, discounts , stock, nearest store to pick up etc.