Whenever you hear about augmented reality and 3d technology, the first thing that comes to your mind is technical headsets that work with AR technology. Those headsets were designed to provide virtual gaming experiences. With these chunky headsets, players can enjoy a real-time experience in any environment. The current AR technology is much more than that. Augmented reality is already in an eCommerce business.
These days eCommerce portals have already started selling products with virtual experiences. Augmented reality has changed the way buyers, can perceive a product. The benefit of virtual reality helps purchasers to enjoy personalized products shopping.
With the help of AR, retailers can display products in an interactive manner. This helps buyers to imagine a product with a 3D image. When products are displayed in an interactive way, it is easy to decide how a product will actually look. This lets them make easy buying decisions. By including 3D images and virtual reality experiences on eCommerce portals, the retailer also ensures increased sales.
What is augmented reality?
Augmented reality is an advanced technological concept that allows including interactive and unique product images on eCommerce portals. This helps create three-dimensional images using smart tools and techniques. When product images are designed using the advanced concept of augmented reality, it helps users interact with products right from their surroundings.
With augmented reality, users can explore the product to know even the finest detail of the product before actually choosing to buy the product. Augmented reality and 3D configuration are an important part of the virtual world which has already changed the way of selling on an eCommerce portal.
How 3d configurations and augmented reality are connected to each other?
Augmented reality ensures virtual and personalized shopping experiences for the customers. The eCommerce portals these days are using the beneficial feature of AR to make products more accessible for buyers. When 3D configurations are used in products of these portals, it helps create impressive experiences of the product.
The AR is highly used because it expands the horizon of selling the product and helps the purchaser to make meaningful buying decisions. The portals that sell with interactive 3d images can be unique when compared to other existing eCommerce portals. This altogether adds up the brand image and helps boost the overall sale of the company.
How to include AR in business?
Augmented reality is already a very known technological concept to many of us. It is important to gain the right knowledge of AR before one could use it to sell products meaningfully. By including concepts of AR, it is easy to boost the overall sale of the portal, but before this, it is also important to know how augmented reality can be implemented in online sales. Here are the ways:
Set the business goals – One must master their skills of selling online before actually implementing AR to the eCommerce portal. There is no wrong with a new eCommerce portal to include AR in their portal, but before this, it is important for an online channel to know their final goals. Know what you wish to achieve with your portal. Once you know your vision and goals, it is easy for you to switch to AR functions.
Once goals are set, it is easy to choose the right tools that can be used to provide virtual and customized selling experiences on a portal. Another important question to ask is how AR will benefit the customer? When you wish to implement an AR application, you must ensure that it is beneficial to your customers and it will somehow let them buy in a better way from you.
- Choose the right tools
Planning and implementing can be two important concepts of AR selling. When you decide to implement AR to your website, it is now your turn to start creating virtual images for the product you are selling on your portal. Identify tools that could help you sell best. To decide the best tool, you need to look into three important aspects:
- Compatibility of the tool
Before you could choose a perfect AR tool; make sure which type of product you are selling on your portal. Also, you must choose a tool that could help create an image that could be compatible enough to run on all devices and on all operating systems.
- The capability of the tool
There are so many AR tools that can be used to create interactive product images. Carefully know about various tools and then compare them to choose just the best. You can evaluate the features of each tool to select the best tool that could match your requirements. - The license of the tool
Know the license type of the tool. You must choose the right AR tool. You can decide to create your own AR app or you can buy an existing tool for your portal. You may also select a free AR tool or can buy an AR product with a commercial license.
Advantages of using augmented reality in business
3D experiences are a need for next-era shopping. So to provide the best experiences for your customers augmented reality is essential. Providing personalized, full-fledged 3D experiences is a must for every store now. There are various advantages of including augmented reality in your portals and this is the reason why it is so widely included today. Some of these advantages are:
- Try before shop
The enhanced AR feature of the products included on various eCommerce portals provides virtual shopping experiences. These days eCommerce portals are smarter, they are set to provide customized experiences. When customers log into the eCommerce portal via a smartphone, the device opens the camera to take pictures of the environment. It then creates a virtual mirror of the environment and helps buyers to imagine the product in their home.These help in cases when a purchaser wishes to buy a sofa or a chair in their environment such that the colour of the sofa or the chair can set well in your home setting.
- Immersive discovery of the place
AR is already into the rent and buys house concepts. Sometimes you are at a remote location planning to buy a new home in another city or to obtain a house for rent. It is impossible for you to decide the original design of the house sitting at home, but with virtual reality in place, this becomes really easy.VR helps provide interactive 3D images which you can use to know how much space each room of the house has. It also helps find out the basic idea of the house plans. This makes it easy for the buyers or tenants to choose the most suitable house without actually entering the house.
- A better understanding of the product
Experiencing products was never fun. Thanks to augmented reality, one can imagine a product in a unique way. E-commerce portals include 3D images and interactive product photos to provide fine detail of the product they are selling. Instead of including various pre-posted images of the product, one must include 3D images of the product so that users can understand the product in a better way.When a customer enjoys products in a personalized way, they feel enlightened and make a decision to actually buy the product. By augmented reality, portals can ensure customer conveniences that motivate them to buy the product.
- Providing personalized experiences
When AR is implemented in e-commerce portals, they also have a smart feature to store cookies. This ensures to track the customer’s behaviour over a portal. Even when they do not store any personal information of the user or disclose the collected information in any manner, they store these images to provide customer experiences.When a user visits a portal to access a particular product, the portal knows the interest of the user. This includes basic information such as the priority of the customer to buy a particular colour of the product or his needs from a product so that whenever he makes the final buying decision, he gets just the best.
- Reducing the product return
The biggest problem of any eCommerce portal is managing the return of the product. This involves unwanted shipping charges and also includes unnecessary pickups and drop up. When an eCommerce portal sells with interactive AR concepts, it is easy for users to decide whether the products meet their needs or not. This helps them make a perfect buying decision.
3D images help entail even the minute detail of the product and thus buyers can actually know the product in a better way when they are buying it. This reduces the chances of the user to, unlike the product. When users like the product there is no case of its return.
How to grow your business with augmented reality?
It is pretty true that the younger generation scrolls for newer and advanced technological changes whenever they are on the internet. When it is about buying in a recent scenario, interactive shopping experiences are expected. This is an obvious reason why the advanced concept of AR and VR are implemented for selling products on eCommerce portals.
Augmented reality ensures interactive 3D images of the products. This provides almost all the detailed information about the product to the customers. This helps boost sales and thus helps grow the business. AR surely helps boost the business and here are the ways:
- It increases customer engagement
By including interactive product images on your portal, you can be unique. This helps attract more users to your website. When users will enjoy scrolling products on your portal, it is sure that they will continue to search for products on your site. This helps them get hooked with your store.
When they spend more time on the site, it is sure that they will finally end up buying one or the product from your site. Even if they do not end up buying, they will surely come back later or sooner to buy some product because they have already established a relationship with your brand by spending so much time on your site. - Target potential customers
With interactive features of augmented reality, it is easy to create a perfect campaign to attract more customers to your website. It is the best way to become a unique portal that easily gets people’s attention.
When there are so many users in the online world, it can be a little tough to target only the potential customers that actually buy from you but with AR, it is easy to know your customers. This helps you target only the potential customers to your portal. - Stand out of competition
There are so many portals that already exist today and in such a scenario, you need something unique to keep attracting your customers. When portals include AR product experiences, this will make them stand out from other existing eCommerce portals. This ensures better shopping experiences.
When users get something unique on your portal, it is sure that they will continue to visit your site to buy multiple products. This will help you boost your business.
How do retailers use augmented reality for boosting sales?
Augmented reality helps deliver the real experience of the product. This helps customers to decide whether the product is worth purchasing or not. The AR feature is included by the retailer to display products on their website that let purchasers imagine products in their time and environment. The retailer chooses the following features of AR to enable product preview on their website:
- Virtual solutions
The retailers provide try-on solutions for every product, with the AR feature. The AR in online portals helps customers to know and experience the product in an amazing way. Online shoppers can view items with their basic details of how they will look. Every purchaser wishes to know how the product will work for him. When products are included with AR features, it is easy for them to understand the product so that they can make a meaningful product buying decision. This makes the purchasing decision quite easy for buyers. - Right placement of the product
Before buying products such as furniture or a wall painting, it is quite hard to decide how it will look in your room? Buyers are often confused about the correct colour combination of the couch or hanging to suit the house walls. For this, retailers often provide the feature of preview placement on their portals. This feature provides a real-time glimpse of the product and its look when it will be placed in a room or in a particular environment. - Creating interactive business cards
It would be a great idea to create an interactive business card to ensure an amazing experience for your customers and partners. The AR technology implemented in a business card help create a unique experience. This great idea helps provide an interactive experience while someone is scanning a QR code. There are various features that can be implemented to business cards that allow users to get interactive images in the background when someone is trying to get into your business with a phone. - Filters of social media
The AR feature included in the portals helps interact with the social media profiles of your users. The social media filters help communicate with the profiles so as to ensure interactive and better customer engagement. With these filters, you can let users scroll your products right when they are on their social media profiles. This helps in correct marketing which can lead to boosting your sales altogether. This is a unique and simple way to interact with your users without actually pressurizing them to purchase. - Product packaging
Augmented reality is already into product packaging as well. Many retailers highly trust AR for packaging so as to ensure an amazing experience for the purchasers. When the final products are packaged using AR, it is an easy way to make a product attractive. This helps buyers to talk about your product which will finally lead to smart marketing of your product and brand. The AR packaging helps create a long-lasting impression in the mind of your buyers.
Conclusion
It has already been proved that many eCommerce portals trust interactive features of augmented reality and 3D configurations to ensure increased sales and enhanced conversions. AR helps provide virtual shopping experiences and thus ensures an increase in overall conversion from online channels. AR has been proved to attract customers. The eCommerce portals having AR features to sell their product receives almost tripled customers when compared to eCommerce portals with no AR selling. This is an obvious reason why eCommerce portals are shifting to this concept.
AR helps display products in an interactive and unique manner, this attracts users. The AR implemented eCommerce portals boosts customer engagement and the time they spend on the portal. This lets customers make a smart and easy buying decision. They know their product and thus can buy the product without any confusion. When buying is an easy decision on any eCommerce portal, the sales will surely boost. AR thus helps receive more customers and also ensures conversion to boost the overall sale.
