With online shopping, we can buy groceries for dinner, new items for our home, and clothes from just about any retailer. Now more than ever, shoppers want to try before they buy!
NexTech AR Solutions is making it easier for customers who shop online to try on products and place items around the home with a camera-ready device and their website-based augmented reality eCommerce platform.
NexTech’s AR Store is an example of how retail businesses can optimize their own eCommerce websites. The site shows images of the product, in this case, some very cool looking aviator sunglasses, a smart TV, a baseball hat, and a variety of other items.
Like any proper online storefront, each of their listed products has a price, sell-worthy product description, high-quality images, and buy buttons. The feature that makes me want to keep perusing the product and website isn’t what I’m promised in the product description.
What sends my hovering buy button finger into the purchasing position is NexTech’s AR viewer. The product viewer gives me the option to electronically wear the sunglasses on my face and baseball hat on my head. This helps me to make sure I’ll really like how they will actually look on me.
Using the camera on my cellphone, the AR-enabled site worked its magic and layered 360-degree product images onto my screen. As a window to my environment, I used the tech to place a smart TV on my table and then tried on the baseball hat.
Detail is important to me, especially when I’m buying something I’m going to wear out for the first time. I tried on the AR baseball hat and noticed that although the color was nice, I didn’t vibe with the fabric pattern up close.
No 2D image will allow you to zoom in that far without compromising the image quality nor will they save you money from making a purchase you didn’t know you wouldn’t like.
Image credit to: NexTech AR Solutions
NexTech’s 3D AR images allow for zooming in and out, resizing, turning over and around – the whole shebang. It even has tags that can be added for specialized product detail add-ins. The platform will track your eyes and face too. This is so you can wear eyewear and jewelry before ever hitting that buy button.
This saves time from having to disappointingly return items and then wait for money to return back to your account or to swap it for something else that might have to be returned as well. They say that they are adding in support for tracking “lips, ears, mouths, and other zones above the shoulder.”
Evan Gappelberg, CEO of NexTech describes how NexTech is making online shopping easier for eager buyers. He says, “One of the most significant pain points that remains in online retail for a consumer is the inability to try something on before they buy it. This often leads to frustration, the ordering of incorrectly sized items, and unnecessary returns that are costly to the retailer.”
“NexTech’s new Try-It-On AR technology eliminates the issue by enabling retailers to offer a virtual fitting room to their consumers to assess the look and fit of an item before purchase.”
Saving time and money isn’t just for the customer, it’s for all businesses who want to use their web-based AR program to provide a more fulfilling sales experience overall. The company says all that’s needed are a few lines of embed code into eCommerce sites, a low monthly subscription fee.
Gappelberg says, “Technologies like augmented reality shouldn’t be available only to large brands with deep pockets. There are thousands of small to midsize retailers that don’t have budgets or technical know-how to develop the AR technology in-house that could significantly boost sales by implementing such a technology.”