The 7 Augmented Reality Examples for eCommerce That You Won’t Believe
Article
Due to the pandemic, consumer behaviour changed drastically, with eCommerce retail sales jumping to 18% of total global retail sales in 2020 from 13% in 2019. This number has only been increasing since then, with 20.8% of sales expected to be attributed to eCommerce by the end of 2023, and reaching 23% by 2025.
Since AR bridges the gap between the physical and online store experiences, allowing consumers to virtually try on or view the products they want to purchase in their own space, the technology is increasingly becoming a crucial element in eCommerce. In fact, Google’s Consumer AR survey in 2019 found out that 66% of people want to use AR when shopping , and by 2024, the AR market is expected to surpass $50 billion.
Because augmented reality takes a live view of the real world (typically through your device’s camera) and overlays digital enhancements (visuals and sound) it’s a great way to showcase your product in your customer’s environment—whether it’s seeing how glasses look on their face or how furniture looks (and fits) in a room.
Consumers want AR. But many retailers still aren’t giving it to them, meaning that those who are have a huge opportunity to capitalise on growing customer demand.
In this article, we will dive into seven examples of augmented reality experiences in eCommerce stores, so you can see just how practical AR can be in the retail sphere.
What Augmented Reality Content Means For eCommerce
Before we dig into our augmented reality examples, let’s take a look at AR’s origins and how the eCommerce sector can leverage the technology.
(If you’ve already got a handle on what AR is, how it has developed, and how augmented reality benefits eCommerce retailers, click here to skip straight to the good stuff.)
A Brief History of Augmented Reality
Though augmented reality is commonly thought of as a relatively modern invention, its roots go back to the 60s when a Harvard professor named Ivan Sutherland invented a head-mounted display called “The Sword of Damocles”. It used computer-generated graphics, which enriched the user’s sensory experience.
Throughout the next 50 years, various industries developed and adopted the technology. Here’s a quick peek at AR’s journey from the first head-mounted display to its use in theatre, sports, space exploration, print media, gaming, and retail.
In analysing this timeline, we can see that for most of augmented reality’s existence, it’s been a fairly exclusive technology, used either entirely for commercial applications or requiring the purchase of additional hardware to access.
The turning point for eCommerce was when IKEA released IKEA Place in 2017, the grandfather of AR retail apps.
Since then, AR has become increasingly consumer-centric, and we’re not just talking about entertaining applications like Pokemon Go. With IKEA setting the tone – and the pandemic happening—high-profile brands quickly entered the AR consumer market. Key players include:
- Magic Leap Inc. demoed Magic Leap One, a headset designed for AR games and productivity applications, in 2018; it was deemed a failure by critics, but the company is giving it another go and is releasing a new version in September 2022
- Sony launched its Sound AR™ Project, which aims to combine real-world and virtual-world sounds to enhance the audio experience, in 2020
- Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. released its AR shopping experience in 2021, enabling consumers to try out phones virtually
- Facebook Technologies LLC announced its foray into AR/VR with applications in online shopping, ads, and wearables in 2021
More than the tech industry, AR’s influence in eCommerce increased, and it is now used in the following markets (to name a few):
- Furniture
- Home appliances
- Decoration
- Clothing and footwear
- Jewellery
- Health and beauty
Augmented reality is transforming the experience of shopping online.
Benefits of Augmented Reality Content & eCommerce
Augmented reality content alleviates the primary pain point experienced when shopping online:
Assessing a product’s viability and suitability.
Simply put online shopping (without AR) involves more margin for error compared to in-person shopping. For example, when you’re purchasing homeware products there’s always a risk they don’t suit your decor as well as you thought. Of course, AR can’t eliminate this issue entirely, particularly for products that involve a lot of personal choices. Clothing is the best example, as no two bodies are alike, but it is a powerful influence on customer experience for many industries.
In addition to alleviating this huge challenge, augmented reality delivers several benefits to online retailers and consumers alike:
Benefits of Augmented Reality
For eCommerce retailers
- 71% of buyers would shop more often if retailers used AR
- 40% of shoppers would pay more to shop via AR
- 70% of customers are more brand loyal to companies that offer AR experiences
- AR delivers 40% higher conversion rates
Clearly, augmented reality content is beneficial for eCommerce retailers.
How can you use augmented reality to improve the customer experience in your eCommerce store?
Let’s take a look at seven examples that illustrate exactly how.
7 Augmented Reality Examples for eCommerce That You Won’t Believe
1. Single Speed Cycles
This Australian bicycle retailer provides simple, reliable, high-quality single-speed and fixie bikes for commuters and riders at affordable prices.
Single Speed Cycles has built themselves a loyal customer base due to their beautiful, yet practical bikes, but realised that seeing really is believing with their product—and conveying the full personalised buying experience online, especially with their comprehensive product line, was difficult to achieve with pictures alone.
Their solution is Bicycles AR Pilot, a 3D product visualisation software developed by Plattar which allows customers to configure and view their customised bike in stunning detail, including the size, colours, finishes, and other features.
By using this tool, customers can also view the bicycle model to correct scale in any space. All they need to do is select the “View in Home” option, which sends a 3D bike model to their smartphone’s camera, allowing the customer to instantly see how their potential new bike will fit in a space.
Implementing this unique new experience for online customers allowed Single Speed Cycles to earn a 19% increase in sales, a reduction in time needed for sales to configure individual customer bicycle requests over the phone, and a significant reduction in marketing costs.
2. Brosa
Another great example of augmented reality used in the eCommerce industry is Brosa, an online furniture retailer.
Brosa offers locally designed, high-end furniture at an affordable price.
The business is a native early adopter of technology and a leader in innovative customer experiences such as online stylists and real-time tracking of delivery drivers. This model resonated with consumers and the company has since been expanding aggressively.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Brosa had been in the process of expanding its virtual experiences, but with competition for visibility skyrocketing during the online retail boom, the need to build on its customer-first, innovation-led business model and further digitise its product range grew more acute. Brosa’s team understood that traditional photography could not provide the in-depth image specifics it needed.
The online furniture retailer wanted a scalable solution that was easy and quick to deploy and would allowed customers to view, place, experience and shop from the comfort of their home. With all its furniture pieces custom-made, it needed a more efficient way to showcase every configuration and design option available, and eliminate any nasty surprises for online shoppers by ensuring the virtual images appear true to life.
Brosa Leadership saw Plattar‘s Augmented Reality platform implemented in other businesses, and wanted to replicate a 3D and Augmented Reality solution on their website that would take the home shopping experience to a new level.
Plattar’s turnkey SaaS solution was easily customised and integrated into the online retailer’s eCommerce engine. ‘View at Home’ AR functionality was embedded into each product page and is automatically available across all devices – on desktop, Apple, and Android.
3D and WebAR are now part of Brosa’s steady-state eCommerce strategy and have become a new, expanding capability for its marketing touch points. Today, its team can build, manage and publish 3D and AR product experiences independently and instantly resulting in 4 x higher conversion rates for online purchases with the ‘View at Home’ option enabled.
3. Baby Bunting
Augmented reality examples for the eCommerce sector can help buyer confidence, especially when safety is involved.
Baby Bunting, an online retailer of car seats, prams, baby clothes, and any other product you’d need for your bundle of joy needed a powerful and accessible way to help buyers overcome the challenge of purchasing large baby gear online.
Parents purchasing a pram or car seat online are also concerned with safety, so the ability to view every aspect of the product to see if it’s the right solution for their child was critical.
With Plattar, customers are able to upload a picture of their space (e.g. the baby’s nursery or the back seat of a car) and position the product within that space so they can see, at scale, exactly how the product fits and looks, without needing to visit a retail location.
The AR visualizer works on any device, whether it’s a computer or smartphone, to provide a seamless and accessible buying experience.
The intuitive drag and drop interface also provides an easily scalable solution for Baby Bunting’s internal teams to add new products with the same customer experience.
4. Sherwin Williams
Sherwin Williams, a manufacturer, and supplier of paints, is a prime example of eCommerce augmented reality.
They are not alone in their field – many paint retailers (Dulux, for example) have embraced AR. However, Sherwin Williams offers one of the most in-depth examples of just how immersive augmented reality experiences can be.
This eliminates a tonne of guesswork, where the standard process is to purchase a handful of paint swatches and get to work throwing a bit of paint up.
Sherwin Williams’ app, colourSnap, works on both iOS and Android devices, empowering shoppers to see exactly what a given shade of paint will look like on their wall at home.
But colourSnap changes that entirely.
First, app users can identify Sherwin Williams shades by simply pointing their phone at objects they like the colour of.
For example, you might find inspiration in a certain shade of terracotta adorned by your favourite plant pot:
colourSnap instantly matches identified colours to real-life paint shades offered by Sherwin Williams.
ColourSnap then scans the walls of your room and allows you to paint your environment using the identified shade virtually.
But you’re not just limited to the shades you’ve identified.
By activating colourSnap’s Kaleidoscope mode, customers can visualise a variety of similar shades at once, and then click to enlarge the image and see exactly what a given shade might look like.
No more “do you like mint green or sea foam green?”.
Moreover, colourSnap has an intuitive dimming feature that shows you what shades will look like in daylight and at night.
Considering the company’s net sales (and their stock price) have nearly doubled since releasing this interactive augmented reality app, it’s safe to say that it’s been a success with buyers.
5. B&D Doors
B&D Doors is a fantastic example of how augmented reality can transform online shopping experiences.
B&D Doors (NZ) Ltd & B&D Australia is a subsidiary’s of DuluxGroup. Their exciting Garage Door Visualiser powered by Plattar pushes the boundaries of 3D modelling by implementing a multilevel configurator allowing customers to change the shape of a virtual home to the accessories that come alongside their stylish garage doors. In addition, this visualiser allows you to experience said doors and accessories in augmented reality to fit your specific needs in the comfort of your own home, facilitating your purchase selections.
Here’s how it works:
- Choose your home type
- Select panel type and finish
- Choose door opener and any specific safety upgrades
- Scan QR code and view in augmented reality
The benefit of this tool is that buyers can view their garage door design ideas in a real-life setting to see if they like the aesthetic before committing to the purchase cost.
6. Bailey Nelson
Bailey Nelson is an Australian eyewear company that is a perfect example of a business that took advantage of AR to adjust to the changing shopping landscape. During the pandemic, the company had to close some of its brick-and-mortar shops. Bailey Nelson then faced a challenge to improve their eCommerce store to make up for the lost revenue.
Their goal: to provide customers with a frame discovery experience online similar to the in-person experience.
While the company had previously considered virtual try-on platforms, they found that the existing solutions in the market weren’t up-to-date and didn’t take advantage of the possibilities that iPhones (and other modern devices) offered.
They found the perfect solution in Plattar, who helped them develop a Virtual Try-On solution that was integrated into the eyewear company’s eCommerce store. This enabled consumers to try out frames and change their choices in real-time as much as they want – from any device (including desktops), anywhere.
The results? Online conversions increased by 400% to 600% across several countries.
7. L’Oréal
Furniture and Homeware are not the only industries offering stunning examples of augmented reality done right; AR experiences are equally popular among clothing and cosmetics brands.
One such example is L’Oréal, a group of beauty brands, including:
- L’Oréal Paris
- Garnier
- Maybelline
- NYX Professional Makeup
- Stylenanda, and more
The group has been all-in on augmented reality since late 2018, with their AR entity ModiFace.
With ModiFace, customers of L’Oréal Paris, NYX Professional Makeup, and Maybelline can virtually try on a new lipstick, foundation, blush, and more styles.
ModiFace is a webAR program, meaning it doesn’t require an app download, making the feature much more accessible.
Customers can simply browse a brand’s website, say Maybelline, and once they’ve chosen a product they’d like to try on, allow access to their device’s front camera:
Users can have before and after images side-by-side and compare up to four shades at once to find the perfect fit.
The technology is not limited only to lipstick choices.
Garnier, one of whose core products is do-it-yourself hair dye, uses a variation of the augmented reality app to allow potential customers to see what a given colour will look like on them, risk-free.
Taking things a step further, L’Oréal Paris’ Skin Genius app uses AI to scan your face and provide recommendations for skincare routines based on your unique appraisal. The app then provides recommendations of relevant products to purchase, essentially providing customers a free, virtual consultation.
Despite a low adoption rate, it is clear that augmented reality offers a number of benefits to online retailers, transforming customer experiences and delivering uplifts in sales and conversion rates.
The augmented reality examples we’ve discussed here are only the beginning. In the last five years, eCommerce stores have really started to embrace AR and its huge potential.
The next five years will see a much larger selection of companies jumping aboard the augmented reality train.
Will you be one of the few who jump in early?
By providing customers with an experience similar to that of in-person shopping, AR opens up a whole new world of opportunities for online shopping. Customers can try on and customise clothing, accessories, and more to ensure they get what they see online – without having to step outside their homes.
The future of AR in eCommerce is bright. With 41% of US consumers forecasted to be using this technology by 2025, retailers can’t afford to sit still and ignore using AR in their online shops.
Are you ready to embrace the future of online shopping? Partner up with the best in the industry. Contact Plattar today to book a demo and see how we can bring your products to life.