The new iPhoneX promises to improve how we use augmented reality in our lives. So how does this impact e-commerce?

e commerce

Lost in the hullabaloo over the iPhoneX FaceID screen was the annual reveal of, “what is important to Apple at this given moment in time”.

In 2015, the Tim Cook revealed — via its focus on Siri — that Apple was pushing its resources into artificial intelligence. Last year, the company worked to distance itself from the ‘boring’ label by removing the beloved headphone jack.

This year, thanks mostly to an animated poop emoji, we now know augmented reality (AR) will be the most interesting space to watch for Apple in the coming year.

FaceID is cool (or controversial, depending on the opinion), but the potential for augmented reality is far more expansive and interesting.

One of the industries that is sure to be impacted is the e-commerce space.

At the e27 Echelon conference last year, one of the most popular booths involved a startup demoing a product in which the person simply walks in front of a camera and automatically gets ‘changed’ into a given outfit.

This particular product could not be used for sizing, but the potential is there and it is not difficult to imagine where the tech is heading.

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The question is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ augmented reality starts to impact the way we shop in the same way e-commerce affected the retail industry.

So, what can we expect?

The positive — interior design as the model

The one industry already seeing an active and enthusiastic embrace of AR is the interior design/home decor industry.
IKEA Place is an example of how a retailer is using AR to add value and drive sales. It lets people use their smartphone camera to place true-to-scale IKEA furniture around the home.

The goal is to get people excited about how a piece of furniture looks, make sure it fits and ideally convince the person to jump on their computer or visit a store and make a purchase.

In the advertisement, IKEA even hints at the point of using AR.

“We want to make it easier for people everywhere to imagine a better place,” says the comforting voice of commerce.

Interestingly, the entire platform is built on the Apple AR development kit.

What makes the IKEA Place is so interesting is what it cannot do — make in-app purchases. That yellow chair that looks great in the dining room? People will still need to get on their computer to buy it — or visit a store if they want it the same day.

Those extra steps are more opportunities for empty carts. As payment, security, and AR technology continues to progress, companies will work hard to reduce as many steps as possible, which may include in-app purchasing straight from an AR experience.

The negative – still a long way to go

It is not difficult to conceptualise how AR can help people buy furniture, lamps, and home paint.

The challenge is consistency, and making AR as much a part of shopping as two-click authentication or typing in a credit card number.

As of now, the road is long to get to that point.

According to the ‘Walker Sands Future of Retail 2017’ report, only 13 per cent of 1,600 survey respondents said a “Virtual Reality Experience” is a driver of sales. Actually, the report points to voice-controlled shopping (driven by Amazon’s Alexa) as the next big trend in retail.

The reason is, thanks to evolutions in artificial intelligence, voice-activated commerce fits seamlessly into our lives.

“Alexa, buy me some toilet paper”. Boom. Amazon just sold some toilet paper.

Augmented Reality is not at this stage. Most of the cool technology is built to help convince the customer to make a purchase, but there are usually a few steps between the experience and the purchase.

If companies can seamlessly let people test out chairs, try on shirts, or experiment with makeup and then buy that item without ever closing the app, they will be on the forefront of bringing AR into our homes as a viable compliment to e-commerce.

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Voice-activated artificial intelligence integrates well within our lives. For the most part, Alexa is not intrusive and it can add value to our lives (Alexa’s music functions are getting a lot of positive attention), and customers don’t have to ‘think’ about the technology.

AR still requires attention, sometimes the technology is clunky or brutish and it usually requires a prompt to even participate.

Even the top of the line AR options (this memory mirror ) still exist as novelties. Sure, the mirror is cool (it records your first ‘pose’ then lets you “change outfits” without running to the changing room), but it targets people who are already inside the store and have picked out clothes. In other words, people who are likely to buy.

As the statistic above states, consumers are likely to be amused — the mirror certainly improves their experience — but does it convert to sales? For 87 per cent of people, that answer is still ‘No’.

The beauty sector leads the way

Back in 2011, long before Pokemon Go turned ‘augmented reality’ into a household term, Shiseido released a makeup simulator (a mirror that let people adjust makeup without actually putting on makeup).

Shiseido has since grown into one of the more technological innovative companies, well, anywhere.

In 2016, they partnered with Microsoft (and Skype For Business — owned by Microsoft) to release a product that lets people ‘put on makeup’ before a conference call. As you may have guessed, they don’t actually put on makeup. The AR works as a filter to add the appearance of makeup to everyone on the other side of the camera.

It’s a fantastic piece of technology, and in some ways outpaces Snapchat and Instagram’s face filters because of the subtly. The whole idea is that other people in the conference call won’t even realise it is a filter.

Another company, WAH NAILS, has an amazing feature in which it applies a hyper-customisable filter to a person’s nails. The user can choose from hundreds of different shades to see how a specific polish looks without trying it on.

But, customers have to leave the app to buy the polish.

The large brand Sephora actually lets people add the makeup to their shopping cart if they like the product. Unfortunately, the technology lags behind the standard and its limited to lipstick, eyelashes and brows.

For beauty, the next step is building an AR experience that can almost entirely replace going to a store (except maybe for texture) and fulfil the sale without ever leaving the app.

Also Read: Bfab pivots with a launch of SaaS product for salons; forays into Singapore

The next 18 months are going to be fascinating to watch as one of the world’s most successful companies turns its eyes towards AR. While AR is still a novelty for the retail world, there should be legitimate excitement about how it works moving forward.

The possibilities are endless and we have finally reached the point where it seems like AR is a matter of when, and not if.

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Disclosure: This article was produced by the e27 content marketing team, sponsored by Cybersource.

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