10 Ways Retailers Can Utilize Augmented Reality Technology

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10 Ways Retailers Can Utilize Augmented Reality
technology
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(No Transcript)
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While augmented reality technology has been
around for several decades, the initial
applications of it never made it into the
commercial world. Primarily being used for
pilot-mounted heads up displays, flight
simulations, and military applications, it has
only recently made an explosive entrance into the
world of entertainment and gaming (see Pokémon
Gos success). Now augmented reality is growing
at a rapid pace, with a growth rate of 18.8bn USD
by 2020, and while the video game market may be
the top driver of growth, the retail sector,
sales sector, and manufacturing sector are
looking to capitalize on this emerging
technology. In this article, well look at 10
ways that retailers can use to take advantage of
augmented reality.
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• Augmented Reality Gives Retailers Virtual Fitting
  Rooms for Higher Conversion Rates.
• Trying on clothing at a physical store location
  is not everyones first choice when it comes to
  shopping for clothes, especially if one has a
  family with them or they are in a hurry. One way
  around this is with virtual fitting rooms.
  Shoppers can try on clothing before they make the
  purchase in the comfort of their own home. This
  helps retailers get higher conversion rates
  because it allows customers to try on clothing at
  their own leisure when it best suits them, thus
  giving them more time to make a more informed
  purchase decision.

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• Augmented Reality Can Aid in Navigating Large
  Warehouses.
• Augmented reality can support warehouse
  management by speeding up the data capture
  processes, so that warehouse managers and staff
  can easily locate and keep tabs on products
  without having to manually count or locate items.
  For instance, warehouse staff can use augmented
  reality to quickly identify and collect items via
  barcode scanning software, allowing them to
  accurately order pick items without error.
  Scandits barcode scanner software turns basic
  smart devices into scanners and SDKs MatrixScan
  allows any device with a camera to scan shelves
  to find, track, and decode barcodes.

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• Blend Traditional Retail eCommerce Together.
• While online shopping is extremely popular, when
  it comes to some products such as grocery items,
  the traditional method of going into a store and
  picking out what items you want to stock your
  kitchen with is preferred. One way to get around
  this is by offering a virtual store through
  augmented reality, that allows customers to still
  get the traditional walk-in experience but
  without the long checkout lines and shopping
  carts with wonky wheels. One example of this is
  Yihaodian, which opened up 1,000 virtual stores
  in prime commercial space (virtually), which gave
  customers looking to grocery shop, the ability to
  walk-in to the store, browse the virtual
  shelves, and checkout without any lines. All
  items were then delivered to your home. Virtual
  stores like this allow companies to get close to
  their customers without the high cost of
  inventory, employee wages or frustratingly long
  checkout lines.

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• The Gamification of Augmented Reality Helps
  Engage Customers Provides Purchase Incentive.
• Augmented reality applications that are built
  alongside physical products can be used to gamify
  the sales decision. For instance, an augmented
  reality application could have you play a game
  after scanning or placing a physical product on
  your smartphone screen. If you win the game, you
  get a purchase incentive, such as a 20 discount
  code.

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• Augmented Reality Experiences Can Be Used in
  Advertising.
• Augmented reality can be used in advertising to
  create emotional connections, save companies
  money, boost sales, and improve hyperlocal
  advertising for establishments directly by the
  customer. Examples of this include Pepsis Bus
  Shelter AR Ad which turned common bus shelter
  posters into an entertaining experience, Toys R
  Us AR campaign that gave children the ability to
  go on a virtual Easter egg hunt (the eggs were
  coupon codes for toys in the store), and
  Lacostes virtual try-ons which used an AR app
  for its brand to aid customers in trying on their
  shoes. The Walking Dead did a similar campaign to
  Pepsis bus shelter campaign, where they used
  high-resolution displays, cameras, and television
  networks at tram stops to shock commuters with
  virtual zombie attacks in an advertising campaign
  for their Walking Dead show.

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• Customers Can Try Before They Buy.
• One of the many ways that retailers can take
  serious advantage of augmented reality, is in
  providing shoppers with a way to try out products
  before purchase. While the traditional in-store
  experience does offer this to an extent think
  elaborately staged showrooms in furniture stores
  or makeup counters with try me samples in
  department stores, augmented reality will allow
  shoppers to try these products out right at home!

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An example of this is LOreals Makeup Genius
application, which takes customers smartphones
and turns them into virtual mirrors, allowing the
customer to try out the makeup products
regardless of their location. You can easily use
this application to scan labels, try on products,
and share your findings with others. But, most
importantly, it gives customers the confidence to
buy a product without having to visit a physical
shop location. Another example of this would be
Ikea and Converse allowing you to use mobile
applications to see how certain products would
look like while in the comfort of your own home.
With Ikea, you could easily place products in
your home with the AR app to see how it looks
against your room décor and with Converse, you
can see how a specific shoe looks on your foot.
The kicker, no need to visit a physical store.
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• Augmented Reality Can Enrich the Shopping
  Experience.
• Augmented reality applications, like the IBM app,
  can be used to make shopping easier and a better
  experience. For instance, with the IBM
  application, you can grab an image of a grocery
  store shelf and then sort the products by
  different fields, such as calories, protein, or
  by the price. You can also open up each product
  to view its nutritional value, sort them by name,
  or even see which ones have discounts attached to
  them.

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• Augmented Reality Can Help Customers Find Good
  Deals.
• Augmented reality gives brick-and-mortar retail
  stores an advantage in that it allows them to
  personalize the shopping experience for those who
  prefer to go online. Retailers can use predictive
  analysis, customer data, and machine learning
  algorithms to generate personalized offers based
  on targeted profiles. For instance, instead of
  offering generic online shopping displays,
  retailers can provide discount displays for
  specific customers based on their past shopping
  behaviors. So, someone who routinely purchases an
  item once a month at a local store, may get a
  substantial discount on that item if they buy a
  second one with their initial purchase.

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• Product Catalogues Go From 2D to 3D in Real Time.
• As mentioned above in method six, retailers can
  take their 2D catalogues and make them appear as
  3D in real time. The best known one for this is
  Ikea, which allows customers to choose a product
  from their catalogue and make it appear or
  project it into their own home via augmented
  reality technology. This gives the customer a
  real-time, scale view, of what the product would
  look like. So, if there is a particular desk,
  shelving unit, or bedroom set that you are
  looking into buying but want to see how it will
  fit with the room you are planning on placing it
  in, you simply use the app to project it into
  your environment. If you like how it looks, you
  can then buy the item right then and there. Its
  fast, its simple, and it gives you a better,
  more seamless shopping experience. The best part
  about this is that any retailer that has a
  magazine or catalogue of their products, can take
  advantage of AR tech in this way.

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• Augmented Reality Store Windows Can Entice
  Customers to Come Inside.
• Interactive window displays can help entice
  customers to head into the shop if they like what
  they see through the display experience. For
  instance, Hugo Boss did a Black Magic Seasons
  Greetings Card for Christmas, where one would
  hold up the card to the outside display and be
  able to view a private fashion show or play a
  game of Blackjack to see if they won a free
  voucher for the store. Other examples of this
  include the Burberry Beauty Box Store which uses
  an interactive display to show off how a nail
  polish looks in real life. The customer just
  simply chooses their skin tone and different nail
  polishes to view them. These types of interactive
  displays will bring customers into the shop if
  they like what they see through the display, as
  it plays up on the individuals curiosity.

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While augmented reality in the retail industry is
still fairly new, we are bound to see more and
more retailers taking on this emerging technology
as the results from AR campaigns can be seen in
real-time with live feedback. There have been
numerous successful and impressive campaigns over
the last few years, which has paved the way for
augmented reality to become a crucial marketing
tool in the future.
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