NEW DELHI: Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have the potential to shake up customer experience by individualising retailers’ offers and enabling customers to visualize products in different settings. According to advisory firm Gartner, 100 million consumers will be shopping via AR online and in-store by 2020.
“Retailers are under increasing pressure to explain the purpose of physical stores, and take control of the fulfillment and return process for cross-channel execution,” said Hanna Karki, principal research analyst at Gartner. “At the same time, consumers are progressively defining the value provided by the experiences they receive from retailers. As a result of these pressures, retailers are turning to AR and VR to offer customers a unified retail experience inside and outside retail stores.”
A 2018 Gartner survey indicated that, by 2020, 46 per cent of retailers planned to deploy either AR or VR solutions to meet customer requirements.
“For example, IKEA’s Place app enables customers to virtually ‘place’ IKEA products in their space. Additionally, AR can be used outside the store after a sale to increase customer satisfaction and improve loyalty,” said Karki.