Amazon Go and other cashierless options aren’t the only big innovations in the retail industry that will require merchants and acquirers to take notice.
In the next year, retailers will make first attempts at augmented reality (AR) shopping, which provides an enhanced visual experience to go along with in-store or omnichannel shopping.
Imagine going into a store, looking at products, and ordering them to your home with your loyalty account with one or two day shipping, maybe less in metropolitan areas.
Houzz is among the adopters of AR with its “View in My Room” mobile app, giving consumers a chance to see what furniture would look like in their own home before purchasing.
More companies will jump on that bandwagon and leverage AR technology to let consumers find out how products will look in their office or home before purchase.
Digital Native Brands will continue to saturate Facebook/Instagram as acquisition channels and will look for different ways of reaching their audience.
AllBirds is a good example of a company that has leveraged Instagram very effectively to get feedback from consumers on its shoes and connect with them directly. Companies like b8ta could scale to create a lot of temporary pop-up shops in order to offer the brands cheaper exposure.