Brands have always struggled for garnering their potential customer’s attention and with the advancement of technology, the competition is only becoming sterner. Technological developments, easier access to online portals, internet and ease of buying goods from international retailers is making it very hard for the retail brands to maintain their market share.
The companies with better marketing strategies and wider reach are gradually becoming successful in enhancing their market share and profits, while the ones that are still relying on conventional methods are struggling to sell their products. If this is seen from the customer’s perspective, they see 1000s of advertisements every day for any product or product related search that they do. The smartphones and other smart devices present a plethora of choices from retailers/brands worldwide.
So, the question is what can retailers do in this time, when the world is also hit by a pandemic, to enhance customer engagement as well as their overall sales profits?
Well, the answer is pretty simple – use “Technology”, but how?
One of the best technology offerings that can help retailers and brands drive their sales as well as customer engagement is AR (Augmented Reality). AR, most of the people remember this technology from the infamous Pokemon game, that drove a lot of smartphone users crazy with its colossal popularity.
Augmented reality: what is it?
Augmented Reality is a technology that enhances the surroundings for users through a smart device. In simple terms, it adds virtual enhancements or additions to reality in the real time. By rendering data and digital images in the existing environment or real-world objects. Augmented Reality attempts to enhance the user experience in various ways by trying to deliver the right & helpful information at the right time.
How can retailers user ar to drive the sales and enhance customer engagement?
- By Creating Highly Personalized Shopping Experience for Users
Whether you are looking forward to buying an expensive car or simply a shirt, whether you are looking for new furniture for your office or just groceries on the weekend, everyone would be more engrossed with a brand if it personalizes the whole experience for its customer. Each customer has its own preferences and not all customers browse the same products.
By paying a bit more attention to what a customer prefers and then enhancing those products/items with AR would certainly result in better customer engagement. Most of the people buy online these days, so something as simple as highlighting the nutrient information or options of what one can cook with a grocery item can make any customer happy. If a customer selects a product and some colorful, informative and interactive pop-ups appear on screen, it is bound to enhance customer loyalty and the way a customer engages with the brand. Companies can hire AR developer to create AR-integrated online shopping applications or the apps that can be used in-stores to enhance the shopping experience to drive sales. - AR based Shopping Assistance
One of the best ways to engross your customers is by understanding their unique requisites and helping them find the products that match those requirements. By Deploying AR, retail brands can eliminate a lot of issues that customers experience. One of the biggest of these online shopping issues is navigating or browsing innumerable shelves to find the right product.
Also, when it comes to physical stores, sometimes, the stores are so big that it becomes really hard for customers to find out the right item or locate the right aisle. But AR based solutions can completely eradicate these issues. With AR based immersive solutions, customers can get the right help for navigating in the store and locating the required products.
Retail brands can hire augmented reality developers to create AR based applications that leverage smartphones and their hardware components like cameras to deliver personal shopping assistants making it easier & faster to shop. - Customer Engagement in Innovative Ways
Who would not love to get a reward from their favourite brand!!!
This is another way the retail brands can leverage AR to drive customer engagement and encourage them to indulge with the brand in productive ways. There are a lot of ways to do it. For instance, games can be designed inside the AR apps and some promo codes can be hidden in the games.Apart from these physical stores can hire AR developer to create some engaging games for children visiting the stores so that the parents can shop easily without getting distracted.
One of the other innovative ways of enhancing the customer engagement through AR can be creating applications that can showcase what’s inside different packs to give customers a lucid view of the product to avoid any issue later. Also, customers would love the idea of being able to check the product packs as they can take informed decisions through this. - Helping with the Decision Making
Retail Brands these days hire augmented reality developer to develop AR based solutions to the common issues that customers experience before taking the decision.
It is undoubtedly, an astounding way, to drive sales and enhance customer loyalty. The customers often shortlist the products but struggle with making the right decision, especially with the online sales and as a result the shortlisted items do not make it from the cart to processed sales.
If AR based solutions can be deployed to simplify the decision making for customers like which dress to choose, which of the shortlisted styles or colour would look better on you, which product offers the features that you’d utilize the most etc., it will certainly drive more sales.
By interacting with shoppers in the right way and offering them the help that they need before they take a buying decision, AR can work wonders in boosting profitability and achieving sales targets for the retail brands.
These are some of the ground-breaking ways in which AR can be leveraged by the retail industry to deliver better services to their customers and drive their sales. Using AR, brands can not only offer the much-needed shopping assistance but also create an unsurpassed user experience which can bring back the customers back to your brands, thereby, transforming them into your loyal patrons.
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