The Technology:

Suppose you want to buy a Bracelet for your birthday. You just open an application on your mobile phone, select the Bracelet and it is projected in the real world through the phone camera. You can try out the Bracelet by placing in on your hand and save yourself the hassle of going to a shop or returning a product which looks good online but doesn’t suit your style offline. In another example, suppose you visit a clothing shop and like a dress displayed on a mannequin. You focus your camera towards the mannequin and it comes to life on your screen, posing with the dress to help you get a better look at the dress.

The technology is limitless and the possibilities countless. Implementation of AR in retail can help businesses keep the spark alive, increase sales and business, retain customers and gain more customers. The benefits of AR that bring to retailers are given below:

Expanding the Product Catalogue: Retailers can create product catalogs via AR apps, offering an excellent experience and various preview options. Online retailers who don't have functional retail stores, they can invest in AR catalogs to overshadow the absence of a showroom. An AR app can help them to show all the products that are on offer without having to invest in a showroom.

Reduction of Return Rates: Simply, AR can reduce the return rates as customers will try out the products (virtually) before purchasing them. This can help to reduce down costs of return pickups and increase profit, along with minimal customer loss.

Enhancing Customer Experience: As always said by people that ‘the customer is always right’, and AR is about providing the customer with the best possible experience. AR offers a modified experience that can go with the needs of the customer. Using an AR application, customers can able to see all options available to them and choose freely and easily after they have visualized the products.

Taking AR In-Store: AR technology is not just about online shopping but also can be integrated in-store to take things an upper level further. The fear of lost or confused in a big shopping area is more common than you think. There has been a countless scenario when customers cannot find what they are looking for as they are standing on the store. This is the place where immersive AR comes to the rescue. AR applications can give exactly accurate information about the products in the store along with the shortest route to the required product. The application may also help, the customer prepare a shopping list and promote certain products in tandem with the customer’s needs, to increase sales up.

How AR is used by Retailers to Enhance Consumer Experience:

The New Yorker: In a revolutionary meeting of print and technology, the New Yorker released an issue with its traditional illustrious cover, but this time with a quite twist. To the naked eye, the covers looked normal and similar to the magazine’s previous covers, but readers could open Uncovr’s application and point it at the magazine to unveil a whole new story behind the cover. The readers received the cover and the idea very well.

Volkswagen: In this modern generation, Who doesn’t like a Volkswagen car? They are fast, they are durable and they are super amazing. For the celebration of the launch of its new Beetle model, Volkswagen used AR features in billboards. If a customer saw the billboard through their AR application, the car would come alive and burst out of the billboard onto their mobile phone screen.

Charlotte Tilbury: Moving a little forward, leading cosmetics brand Charlotte Tilbury took the technology out of the hands of the customers and installed in into mirrors in their store. These AR-enabled mirrors can scan the faces of the customers sitting in front of them and display it with the brand’s most iconic looks. Therefore, customers can browse through various shades of looks that they can invest in without having to wear any makeup physically.

Lego: The LEGO giant brings forward their Lego Digital Box kiosk, that helps customer envisage the end product after assembly. Customers who are AR users, just need to stand in front of the kiosk with the Lego box and it will show a pseudo 3-D image. The company believes that this move will definitely increase engagement and help children to learn faster as they will know what they are heading to.

Conclusion: The demand for AR VR app development services is growing. Both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are becoming more and more common by the minute. This is the right time for retailers to be on their toes and leverage the capabilities of the AR technology to offer an enhanced experience to its consumers via product-focused campaigns. The AR technology adds more and more convenience on the top of what online shopping offers, making shopping a happy, pleasant and informed exercise for the customers. As the giants make use of this technology, it is the time for the small and medium scale establishments to jump into the mix as well. Are you planning to upgrade your business apps with AR, VR and MR technologies? Talk to our software developers today. We are an AR VR app development company that builds robust and feature-rich applications for enterprises across the globe.