In today’s world of technological advancement where competition between brands is becoming more fierce day by day — one of the most galvanizing tools has proved to be Augmented Reality, and that especially in the field of eCommerce.
As we at Aryel stated many times in our articles (you can find them here), AR allows brands and businesses to create a more engaging, personal, and subjective experience for the customer buying a particular product, and this, in turn, creates more traffic on the website, which is something that companies look for.
But how is AR going to change eCommerce? Let’s find it out in this article!
How does AR revolutionize eCommerce’s world?
Augmented Reality creates a personalized customer experience in the eCommerce world and digital markets all around, by blurring the line between the physical reality and the virtual one.
For instance, if a purchaser has grown to like a dining table set and wonders how it would come to look in their living room, the AR creates a modeled version of it — by visualizing the product in the space of customer’s choice.
This makes the consumers feel more comfortable and gives the retailers that credibility that helps them earn the consumers’ trust and increase their conversions.
The advantages of augmented reality in eCommerce
What are the benefits this technology brings to brands and businesses, in a nutshell?
- Time-efficiency: By employing the use of these digital resources and devices, AR allows for the purchasers to explore a wide variety of products while saving time. When the interface itself grants users a more prolific itemized list of products, in a short period, it is normal that they end up buying more products. This ultimately boosts sales, giving eCommerce retailers a whole lot of confidence to experiment even more with this AR dynamic.
- Complete personalization: Most purchasers like to explore multiple avenues when it comes to selecting a specific product. With AR, people can now bride physical and psychological barriers and test out their preferences, while experiencing a whole new way to online shopping. The possibility to experiment with colors, textures, patterns, sizes, etc. are all vivid possibilities.
- An engaging shopping experience: AR grants customers a more assured examination of their choice and reduces the chances of any return or exchange incidents taking place, which saves both time and money. Furthermore, as this report says, 35% of customers say AR would make them shop online more often. Not bad!
- A little push down the sales funnel: it is known, funnel marketing is a thing. While converting a potential customer to an actual one can be difficult for companies that are facing fierce competition out there, improving the online shopping experience can be a crucial factor to attract new customers and actually retain them during all the sales processes.
It is essential to consider how products also have a “service” aspect to them, that is how complete and fulfilling the experience of that product is — for instance, take how shopping for interior decorating is: think about finding the right tiles, the wallpapers, the carpets, the curtains, etc.
If they aren’t suiting the aesthetic feel of your space, it doesn’t prove to be a very pleasing experience. To combat this, AR retail users create “experience spaces” to showcase the product to its full potential.
Of course, AR technology is not cheap: it requires coding skills, 3D models, and native apps to run on customers smartphones. Does it have to be like this? Not necessarily!
Thanks to platforms like Aryel, that uses WebAR technology (we explained how it works in this article), integrating Augmented Reality into eCommerces is possible even to smaller businesses or brands — that wouldn’t have the budget to create native AR experiences or develop proprietary apps.
The future of augmented reality concerning eCommerce
Augmented Reality is, as for now, playing a pivotal role in the dimension of eCommerce.
With its rapidly developing platforms, it is also proving to be quite convincing to the online purchasers to stay engaged and make purchases based on a confirmed and conscious choice, while also bringing in the in-store circulation of customers.
It is estimating a mass increase of sale-profits. Conventional methods like product descriptions, 360 degree-views, etc. aren’t proving to be very fruitful anymore — they aren’t merely convincing enough to lock-in purchases.
AR makes people’s lives digitally convenient, and on the retailer’s side, it enhances satisfaction as it gives their product an increased chance of purchase, more so than their competition who might not be employing this technology.
As for the customers, they can expect things to get interesting, as eCommerce stores are additionally digitizing their resources to assist them in practicing virtual shopping at their appropriate subjective time and the right place.
Thanks to AR, businesses finally have the opportunity to bring their eCommerce to life and give their customers more engaging experience, securing their loyalty and “guiding” them through their marketing’s funnel.
