How Augmented Reality Is Revolutionising eCommerce Industry

With the advent of Augmented Reality (AR), the ecommerce industry has widened its horizons and enhanced customer experience. AR has empowered the ecommerce applications to create a real-life experience for the users, and this AR is driving a lot of sales. It could be the next big thing for ecommerce, and it is a perfect time to jump on this wave before it breaks. However, many of the online retailers feel that AR is not in their means and feels that it can only be used by big brands. Yes, AR isn’t free but it is more affordable than you think. In fact, you would be able to easily recover the costs by the increase in sales. In this article, we have mentioned about the AR, the different use cases in various industries, and a lot more.

In 2016, AR gained a huge leap with a myriad of success in the video game Pokemon Go. And now it has begun to penetrate our daily lives by solving a lot of mundane tasks. In 2018, the global valuation of Augmented Reality was estimated at nearly USD 26.7 billion, and by 2025, it is expected to reach USD 814.7 billion. The average growth would be nearly 60% between this period. The revolutionary thing in the AR is its visualization. It lets you visualize things that you can’t even imagine. As per a research, it was found 22% of customers will avoid traditional retailers if AR would be available in online stores.

What is Augmented Reality?

Augmented reality takes the use of the world around the buyer. Using it, the buyers can place the products on their body or in their home or can see the effects of their use. It is the result of using technology to superimpose information such as sounds, images, or text – in the real world where we can see and feel.

Now let’s dive into the different use cases of AR into varied industries segments.

1. IKEA

The furniture giant IKEA could be the best example of using AR visualization for driving sales. The shoppers can use their smartphones to visualize how the furniture will look in their homes before they buy. Customers use Ikea Place app, one of the first ecommerce apps to use Apple’s ARKit tech, to place the company’s furniture wherever they envision it in their homes. The app provides the 3-D rendering of over 2,000 products at different angles before reserving the ones they want in the app, which directs to the Ikea site for completing the purchase. Currently, only large furniture such as sofas, chairs, storage units, beds, etc is available to visualize in the app. However, there are more products in the pipeline.

2. eBay

eBay gained a lot of popularity when it introduced augmented reality to help sellers find the right box of their products. During shipping, finding the right box can be a hassle. The AR solution of eBay enabled millions of ecommerce sellers to quickly select the best USPS flat rate box for items they need to ship. In this feature, the users need to select a box size, place the virtual box over their sold item, and move the box around the item to see a complete view of the product inside the box. The user can see virtually whether the item fits inside the shipping box before he chooses a physical box for packaging the item.

Also Read: Future of eCommerce: How eCommerce Will Change in 2020?

3. Amazon

There is an adage “Don’t trust everything you see online”, many customers still hesitate while doing online shopping and have a fear that the products they have purchased will not arrive as they appear online. The ecommerce giant Amazon understood this fear and started developing an augmented reality based application for its customers. The AR view will allow its user to generate images of products in their living space via augmented reality. Using such features, shoppers can easily take buying decisions by visualizing how viewed items will fit the aesthetic and layout of their home. The shoppers even have the option to move or rotate these images on their device to test the placements at different angles.

4. Banana Flame

Banana Flame is an online fashion retailer that recently introduced augmented reality in its application for providing better user experience to its customers. You can find the “See how it looks” button on every piece of clothing on this fashion store. The augmented reality feature creates a virtual changing room to allow online shoppers to check how the garment will look on them before they purchase.

The technology turns the shoppers’ camera into “mirrors” and then they can virtually hold the piece of clothing to check if it suits them. It also comes up with the feature of sharing by which you can take snaps and share the looks with their kith & kin for instant feedback by Facebook, Email, or Twitter.

5. Wannaby’s Wannakicks

You would be surprised to know that using Wannaby’s Wannakicks app you can try 10 pairs of shoes within 10 seconds virtually. The iOS app “Wannakicks” will let you try a perfect pair of sneakers using augmented reality. You just need to choose a pair from the list of 3D models, point your camera at your feet and within seconds you are virtually wearing your chosen footwear. You can also rotate your feet or change the camera angle to have a look at different angles. In fact, you can also try walking and the AR app will follow your footsteps.

6. Gap’s Dressing Room