Augmented Reality implementation becomes more and more common in Retail industry allowing both customers and merchants to experience new ways of electronic commerce. According to Gartner, we can expect around 100 million consumers that use AR technology during their online and offline shopping this year, which means that the development of A-Commerce application will be must-have for online retailers soon.
What benefits can Augmented Reality bring to online retail?
- Improve brand awareness
Augmented Reality gives numerous advertising opportunities for brand awareness improvement. Using AR you can create branded filters for social media like Instagram or Snapchat that can help you to get valuable feedback, reach new target audiences and learn more about your customers including interests, preferences, etc. You can also use AR for storytelling by creating a unique character providing your potential customers with interesting information about your brand – its history, achievements and so on. - Increase user engagement
A-Commerce provides users with interactive shopping experience increasing engagement and building stronger relations with your brand. Trying an item with AR can give a customer a lot more information compared to a simple description. You can add step-by-step visual instruction that will explain to customers how to assemble your item or how you should care about it. Another great option is re-creating your offline stores in your app. This way you can make the customer experience even more emotional because you give clients an opportunity to explore your offline store without leaving home. - Improve business development strategies
Interactive shopping not only makes your products easy to use and enjoy but also opens new opportunities for sales and marketing strategies. Personalization provided by AR helps to produce user-generated content shared by your audience via social media. You can also implement influencer marketing strategies by collaborating with bloggers and famous people asking them to share their AR shopping experience for driving traffic. One more benefit of AR-powered marketing: the absence of language barriers that allows you to reach more potential customers. - Reduce return rates
Augmented commerce allows customers to test products before purchasing that can reduce the return rates of your company. With the help of AR they can easily see 3D visualization models in their own environment and evaluate the size, color and texture of a product. It solves the problem of the imagination gap and helps customers to feel a physical presence within online shopping. Thanks to it your buyers can make more informed decisions on a purchase reducing return rates and minimizing resources you have to allocate for return processing. - Personalize shopping experience
Overlaying digital content into a real-world context makes shopping extremely personalized. It offers your customers to easily create unique experiences by themselves whether they try on new sunglasses or preview new armchair in their living room. You can also use a combination of AR and Machine Learning that will provide customers with real-time contextual product recommendations.
Retail
Augmented commerce is one of the most promising Retail trends, which tomorrow can become a necessity. It increases sales, improves customer experience and draws new target audiences for your business. If you want to implement an AR-featured E-Commerce solution that will make your online Retail a powerful sales channel, the Exposit team will be glad to help you.
