From Beyoncé to Brick-and-Mortar, AR Technology Taking Center Stage
Augmented reality blurring the line between customers' online and in-store shopping experience
Fans of superstar artists like Beyoncé, Kanye West and Adele stand in line for hours outside stadiums & music halls; they sacrifice sleep to scour websites for the last remaining tickets, and spend months memorising entire albums-worth of lyrics. What’s all the hype about? In recent years, headlining concerts have gone far beyond the vocals. Computer-generated holographs, LED screens, beaming lasers, and multimedia projections create mind-blowing fan experiences.
Augmented reality (AR) has entered the music scene and design innovators like Es Devlin are setting the stage for concerts and theaters, but it doesn’t stop there. Home good retailers like Ashley Furniture and lifestyle firms such as Related Companies are amplifying the customer experience with AR technology. As we have seen, projection mapping products like those created by VizeraLab allow brick-and-mortar retail spaces to more closely mirror their eCommerce counterparts. This kind of digital innovation is exactly what in-store shoppers are after.
At the 2017 GDS Group eCommerce Insight Summit, senior executives agreed that consumers want a seamless transition between online and in-store shopping. Several home goods and luxury realty companies—two sectors that traditionally depended upon face-to-face transactions—have been some of the first to implement AR.
Forget the smoke and mirrors, here’s how it works: you are in the market for a new home and decide to visit 520 W. 28th Street, a luxury property in NYC designed by former world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid. Upon entering the sales office, large-than-life projections transform the gallery’s white walls; you now find yourself standing in the living room of your potential new home. During a self-guided tour through each room you take a moment to look out the bedroom window. Imagery depicting the outside world forces you to do a double-take.
“You must give customers a compelling reason to walk through your doors,”
This kind of augmented reality is what Kevin Thompson, Chief Marketing Officer at Sotheby’s International Realty, describes as the future of commerce. “They want to know exactly what it feels like to live there,” explains Thompson of today’s homebuyers. Projection imagery inserts product visualisations into the customer’s lived reality. “You must give customers a compelling reason to walk through your doors,” Thompson says when considering the challenges of enticing customers that are accustom to buying online.
Alright, you’re sold! After securing your new home, it is time to decorate. A typical furniture stores resembles a warehouse-style showroom with a maze-like formation of staged bed sets and armoires. Instead, picture yourself in a store no bigger than your newly acquired 500-square-foot NY apartment. With projection mapping, you test hundreds of textiles and color combinations for every love seat and side table imaginable. This type of AR technology gives customers the control to design the décor of their dreams.
Liron Damri, COO of Forter says “the digital customer expects more; they demand a frictionless, contextual and innovative [shopping] experience.” When the buying journey begins online, customers want the look and feel of the eCommerce space to translate to the store. AR technology is being used to create a seamless transition between online and in-person buying.
Holly Bounds, Digital Global Commerce Leader at GE Energy Connections defines digital commerce as the successful execution of people, processes and technologies that touches every point throughout the customer buying journey. She believes as technology innovation progresses, so too should customer loyalty.
AR to retailers is what set design is to a pop-star; it is all about the execution.
AR to retailers is what set design is to a pop-star; it is all about the execution. Projection mapping is no ‘one-hit wonder’. When it comes to digital transformation, AR technology is front and center. From what fans are saying, companies that integrate AR into the customer buying experience are on their way to super-stardom.
Learn how you can be a part of the next eCommerce Insight Summit by visiting the GDS Group Summits website. You can also read more about digital disruptors, like AR technology, on the GDS Group blog.
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