Augmented Reality is a revolutionary technology that blends digital information with the physical environment.
It is an interactive way of enhancing natural environments or situations and offer perceptually enriched experiences.
AR uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it, unlike Virtual Reality, which creates an entirely artificial environment.
Augmented Reality Apps are software applications that merge the digital visual content into the user’s real-world environment.
There are Augmented Reality browsers that enhance users’ camera display with contextual information. For example, when you point your smartphone at a building, you can see its history or estimated value.
AR can be used to integrate print and video marketing. Printed marketing material can be designed with specific “trigger” images that, when scanned by an AR-enabled device using image recognition, activate a video version of the promotional material.
AR enhances product previews, such as allowing a customer to view what’s inside a product’s packaging without opening it.
Augmented Reality has been developed for e-commerce since 2010 when virtual dressing rooms were created.
In 2018, Shopify started to give merchants the possibility to upload 3D models of their products and users to tap on the items to view in their real-world environments.
This way, phone-based AR makes online purchases look a little more lifelike for users.
Within the context of marketing, Augmented Reality allows brands to offer unique and immersive digital experiences and to engage consumers memorably.
Users become more demanding, so the business owners have to keep up with the ever-changing environment and rapidly adjust their business to the user needs.
When online visitors are virtually trying out different products, they’re able to make more informed, better decisions before proceeding to the checkout page.
Augmented Reality is becoming more frequently used for online businesses and the future of eCommerce will revolve around consumer’s expectations.
Still, e-commerce innovators across the globe are striving hard to overcome the most prominent psychological barrier that consumers face while shopping for products online.
Shoppers lose a large number of sales because of their inability to evaluate and envision the sense of using the product confidently. Augmented Reality solves this problem by eliminating ambiguity from e-commerce purchases.
The try-on solution acts as a revolutionary key that provides a more sophisticated experience for online shoppers.
Companies offer the ability to upload a picture on their website and view different outfits on themselves without the need of physically changing clothes.
Makeup stores also have apps that utilize AR and allow consumers to see how makeup will look on their face and virtually try different products, while at home or anywhere else.
This contributes to the company’s revenue and customer loyalty increase because users are more confident about buying the products and at the same time, they appreciate that the company cares about them.
Furniture retailers needed a way to showcase their furniture, so they used AR to allow consumers to view their products and place them, with their phones, anywhere in a room, before making the decision to purchase. This helps consumers to visualize the product in the context of the physical space they’ll occupy.
Along with the furniture apps, Augmented Reality allows customers to choose paint from a wide selection of brands, to determine which color they should use on their walls.
AR apps for food commerce increases customer engagement. Customers get to view all the dishes in a menu through smart devices and order them online.
This provides an excellent opportunity for the users to see the actual serving size, what the main dishes look like and other food combinations.
Augmented Reality adds digital images and data to amplify views of the real world, giving users more information about their environments.
Augmented reality e-commerce apps allow customers to have an out-of-the-box buying experience and create a sense of presence for objects that are not there.
As a result, products combined with Augmented Reality can influence the potential customer more than pictures or videos.
As compared to a typical e-Commerce experience, AR integrated e-commerce experience offers enhanced customer engagement and the ability to modify and customize your selection.
Augmented Reality has so much potential to change how e-commerce operates as users feel like they can gain better impressions of what the physical goods they’re buying will look and operate like in real life.