Modern-day consumer expectations are very high and the industry is also competitive, which means that if you cannot offer a modern, efficient service and high-quality products, then potential buyers will simply take their business elsewhere.

Chatbots are becoming increasingly common and important in e-commerce
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It can also be difficult to know the best ways to modernise when there are constantly new developments and trends appearing seemingly every week. Here are a few of the best ways to modernise your e-commerce store and hopefully help you stay ahead of the curve.

Chatbots

Chatbots are becoming increasingly common and important in e-commerce as AI technology continues to improve. People often have questions when it comes to online shopping, and being able to answer these immediately could help to improve conversions and stop people from using another store.

Offering voice search could help your store to stand out and be accessible to more users
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Voice Search

The rise of personal assistant devices in recent times has led to an increase in voice searches which is expected to surge in the coming years. Therefore, offering this service could help your store to stand out and be accessible to more users.

Mobile-Optimised

Following this, more and more people are shopping on their mobile devices, so it is important that your e-commerce store is mobile-optimised. Mobile use is predicted to overtake desktop shopping within the next few years, so optimisation is vital if you’re to stay ahead. It is also helpful for improving your search engine ranking.

Mobile use is predicted to overtake desktop shopping within the next few years
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Warehouse Management Systems

It is not just the store that you need to modernise, as the warehouse is an area of the business which can often cause stress and slow down the operation. This is why the best warehouse management systems should be implemented to streamline the entire operation and help with the daily running for increased efficiency while making work much easier for staff.

The warehouse is an area of the business which can often cause stress and slow down operations
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Product Visualisation

Product visualisation is crucial for converting visitors into customers, but you will need to provide more than just a few photos to compete in today’s market. Many e-commerce businesses are now including videos that help people see the product in action, and from all angles. But you could take this a step further with Augmented Reality which will enable them to see the product in a “real-life” setting. This is particularly helpful for products like hats, glasses, and furniture.

Product visualisation is crucial for converting visitors into customers
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Personalisation

Personalisation is a huge trend occurring in e-commerce right now as consumers expect to have a shopping experience based on their individual preferences. Being able to collect and interpret customer data with machine learning can enable an e-commerce business to recommend relevant products that can boost sales and enhance the overall customer experience.

Augmented Reality could enable your customers to see the product in a “real-life” setting
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It is essential that you stay current when it comes to e-commerce technology and trends. The above examples are just a few of the main types of technology that are currently being utilised. Implementing these technologies could help your store stay ahead and provide a better experience for customers.

Implementing these technologies could help your store stay ahead and provide a better experience for customers
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Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

The post Tech Trends in E-commerce appeared first on Tech Trends.

How can we increase AR awareness & adoption and what does the future look like?
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Immersive technologies such as Augmented reality (AR) Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) which collectively come under the umbrella of – keep up with me here – Extended Reality (XR) are being used by an increasing number of companies to build consumer engagement and enhance the customer experience.

For those few who have crossed the threshold and are creating working AR projects to drive business engagement, questions still remain about overall adoption, increasing awareness and measuring ROI
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As with any novel, yet undoubtedly powerful technology, businesses are scrambling to maximize its revenue-creating potential, incentivized by the prospect of developing the much-vaunted ‘killer app’. Accordingly, many benefits of AR as a means to increase consumer engagement have become apparent in recent years; consumer marketing can be drastically enhanced, being rendered immersive, exciting and personalized, while the ability to monitor engagement data in real-time offers the possibility of refining the customer journey to increase enjoyment of an experience and maximize customer engagement with the brand.

As with any novel, yet undoubtedly powerful technology, businesses are scrambling to maximize the revenue-creating potential of XR
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Despite initial success, for those few who have crossed the threshold and are creating working AR projects to drive business engagement, questions still remain about overall adoption, increasing awareness and measuring ROI in a challenging environment where online offline commerce channels are blending into one another and customers are increasingly demanding omnichannel experiences.

VR Intelligence are hosting a live webinar, ‘AR for Consumer Engagement & Retail – From Fun Feature to Daily Essential’ on August 14
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To explore this and more, VR Intelligence are hosting a live webinar, ‘AR for Consumer Engagement & Retail – From Fun Feature to Daily Essential’, taking place Wednesday, August 14, 9:00am PT/12:00pm ET/5:00pm BST. We will be joined by Michael Haddad (Augmented Beauty US Director, L’Oréal), Jasper Krog (Senior Global Digital Innovation Manager, NIVEA), Max Andaker (Digital Innovation Manager, Nestlé Silicon Valley Innovation Outpost), Cathy Hackl (Enterprise Director, Magic Leap) and Terry Schussler, Director, Immersive Technology, Deutsche Telekom).

Register for this webinar to explore the following:

• A glance at the current state of phone-based AR content and implications for industry growth
• Why is retail a leading segment? What opportunities and challenges still exist for retailers?
• Where are consumers using AR now, and how will they look to use it going forward? What impact will 5G have?
• How are both phone-based and wearable device OEMs looking to capitalize? What tech improvements are needed for improved UX?
• How can we increase AR awareness & adoption and what does the future look like?

Those who cannot join live will be sent the recordings once the webinar has run.

This webinar is being run in association with VR Intelligence’s upcoming VRX Conference & Expo, taking place December 12-13, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport Hotel. Expecting more than 600 senior attendees from across gaming, entertainment, healthcare, retail, automotive industries and more, VRX is the world’s premier B2B immersive tech event for those wishing to use XR to boost ROI, propel their business forward and engage consumers through immersive, innovative experiences.

Tech Trends is an official media partner of VRX 2019

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Extending Retail appeared first on Tech Trends.

Let’s start with a bit of jargon busting; in a nutshell, Ominchannel brings together the benefits of e-commerce and physical – what is known as “bricks and mortar” retailers.

Many start-ups and Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) would do well to incorporate omnichannel thinking in their own roadmaps
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As with many such things this trend was set by Amazon (which started setting up locations to support and extend its online operations) and others (Warby Parker and Shopify to name but a couple) have quickly latched onto its obvious advantages. Now companies such as Wal-Mart are wisely viewing physical stores as places where customers can pick up and return merchandise, a combination of e-commerce and physical retail that makes the purchase experience more convenient than either an e-commerce or retail store alone.

Ominchannel brings together the benefits of e-commerce with bricks and mortar retailers
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But those big names shouldn’t give the impression that this type of strategy only works on a large scale. Start-ups and Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) would do well to incorporate such thinking in their own roadmaps.

In an age where (not least because of the advent of immersive technologies and spatial computing) the physical and digital worlds are increasingly blending together, as are the shopping experiences that consumers expect. But while we wait for the world of Ready Player One, where haptic suits will routinely enhance Virtual Reality with physical sensations, humans will still get their tactile experiences in a “real world” shop.

In an age where (not least because of the advent of immersive technologies and spatial computing) the physical and digital worlds are increasingly blending together, as are the shopping experiences that consumers expect
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One company leading this trend is StickerYou, which successfully sells custom stickers and decals online, and is now planning to open the world’s largest sticker store in Toronto later this month. Tech Trends talks to their Founder and President, Andrew Witkin, about why they have decided to take the omnichannel approach, and what other digital retailers should take into account before going down that road themselves.

The first step says Witkin, is to do a thorough audit of what your start-up’s goals are, what products you offer and whether or not these products or services are significantly enhanced by an in-person experience
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“For example, at StickerYou, we offer customized, die-cut stickers, but there is a large gap between ordering stickers online and feeling the quality of a sticker, or being inspired by the creativity of sticker designs right in front of you, which is why we are opening a retail space in 2019,” he says. “When customers can experience these products in real time, it can help drive brand awareness in a way that e-commerce simply can’t. Having a brick and mortar location not only allows customers to experience your products in person, it also opens up a host of opportunities for savvy e-commerce retailers.”

These opportunities can range from hosting product and industry-focused workshops and events to gleaning in-person feedback from customers on products and services, a brick and mortar location, properly leveraged, can be a place for a brand to shine.

When evaluating this benefit, Witkin recommends that business owners look at the retail location as a channel that can push online sales rather than a store that is evaluated solely by traditional retail metrics.

“Your retail location works as both a store and an advertising space for your e-commerce business. As such, weigh the current per-click costs of online advertising against the potential costs of driving individualized shopping experiences through in-store brand interactions, drop-ins and walk-by traffic. If these types of interactions can be considered as impressions, then a physical retail space can break even or operate at a loss and still be ROI positive, as long as it succeeds in driving increases in online sales and overall lowered cost-per-click ad spend.”

“If your retail space breaks even, all marketing value generated by the store could be considered as free. As long as the KPIs of retail marketing campaigns are equal to or less than that of the current online strategies for your business, then the omnichannel strategy pans out for you.”

This alone will make the search experience a more memorable one, kind of like searching through records in a bin and discovering something new you didn’t know you were looking for.

They are getting ready to open a StickerYou store in the next few weeks in Toronto’s hippest quarter at 677-679 Queen Street West, Toronto, Canada, and they are planning to make a splash (this will be, according to the company, the world’s largest sticker store) with a 3-storey tall vinyl graphic in collaboration with applied sciences company 3M.

The trend towards traditional retailers closing has also meant that commercial landlords have become more open to offers of short-term rent deals and pop-up concepts
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The store will be an experiential space, with stickerbombed walls, tangible product, a custom experience space where customers can see others’ designs and kiosks where they can create their own using StickerYou’s online StickerMaker. There will also be a Sticker Museum that details the history of stickers in the basement, and a sticker art exhibition is set to take place in the fall (the first of many), featuring works from sticker artists across the globe such as Shepard Fairey (think the iconic Obama “Hope” illustrations) and Matthew Hoffman (You Are Beautiful).

“Ecommerce retailers need to approach this from an entirely different perspective, and ask themselves what a physical store and buying experience adds to their brand that online channels don’t.”

The trend towards traditional retailers closing has also meant that commercial landlords have become more open to offers of short-term rent deals and pop-up concepts which carry lower risk for e-tailers to dabble in the omnichannel concept, according to Witkin.

“I would first evaluate if the business, merchandise or brand experience can be enhanced by a physical retail location. If the answer is yes, then I would start with a pop-up and test the waters.”

“The ROI on the retail investment can be viewed against the physical store’s sales as well as incremental online sales due to the additional brand awareness that the physical store generates.”

Witkin sees the trend gaining momentum creating a new online/brick and mortar hybrid which is unlike either traditional retailers or online-only stores, but something better than the sum of its parts.

Many online retailers may only open one store, or a handful of stores
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“I believe more online retailers will get into physical retail,” he writes.  “However, I don’t believe the scale of stores will be the same as that of traditional retail chains. Perhaps an online retailer will have a few stores in a city, but I don’t believe many online retailers will go past that. Many online retailers may only open up just one store, or a handful of stores.”

Witkin also sees a paradoxical trend in the opposite direction to some degree with brick-and-mortar stores investing in their online presence. For some time, they focused on omnichannel pick up locations which gave them a good footing. However, he says these traditional brick-and-mortar retailers need to improve the merchandise experience in store so there’s more reason to engage products and not just pick things up from their physical locations.

The StickerYou store will open in mid-August at 677-679 Queen Street West, Toronto, Canada

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Bringing Digital and Physical Together with an Omnichannel Strategy appeared first on Tech Trends.

With more retailers integrating immersive technologies in both their logistics and customer-facing operations, will consumers finally start buying into VR and AR?

These are doubtless challenging times for brick-and-mortar retailers who prove slow to incorporate new technologies in their operations – we don’t need to look much further than the collapse of Sears for a high profile recent casualty. But disruption also means opportunity for those who embrace innovation and are willing to reinvent themselves in the digital age, and immersive technologies are becoming an increasingly big part of that picture.

According to various analysts, AR will drive $122 billion in eCommerce spending by 2022 with e-Commerce expected to be the number 1 sector for AR. Smart retailers are looking to visualization tools like 3D products, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality as a way to show off more products in less space (or in the customer’s home), which reduces the need for square footage.

These are doubtless challenging times for brick-and-mortar retailers who prove slow to incorporate new technologies in their operations
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Disruption also means opportunity for those who embrace innovation and are willing to reinvent themselves in the digital age
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Amazon, IKEA, and Wayfair are all using these technologies to bring together the advantages of online shopping with brick and mortar retailing to add value to real-world shopping experiences with a minimal learning curve for both employees and customers. Macy’s Virtual Reality furniture experience, for example, allows people to design their own living spaces, populating it with items from Macy’s extensive catalog of products, using a headset VR headset to then walk around these spaces in Virtual Reality.

“There’s really no air between “traditional retailers” and “online retailers” anymore,” says Beck Besecker, Co-founder and CEO of Marxent, the 3D Cloud platform which powers the Macy’s experience. “The “traditional” players (like Macy’s) are embracing new technology and e-commerce sales tools, while online retailers are looking to move into the real world by opening stores or acquiring companies that already have them. (Think Amazon buying Whole Foods.) Moving forward, any retailer that’s not utilizing some combination of immersive technology with a physical presence in the real world is in danger of being left behind.”

Macy’s invested in a three-month pilot in stores of different sizes, and saw positive results. Based on those, they decided to roll out the technology to 70 stores, a process which was completed in October, with a further 20 locations set to go online by January 2019.

Amazon, IKEA, and Wayfair are all using immersive technologies to bring together the advantages of online shopping with brick and mortar retailing to add value to real-world shopping experiences
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“Customers can take a 2D floorplan and transition it to 3D in real time,” said Besecker. They also offer the opportunity for customers to use AR to place the product in their actual living spaces. Since implementation started, VR-influenced furniture sales have increased by more than 60 percent versus non-VR furniture sales, while returns are down to less than 2 percent when using VR.

“Since immersive technologies like VR still require some human assistance and expensive headsets most people don’t have at home, brick-and-mortar retailers have an edge to provide this type of on-site immersive shopping experiences,” Mickaël Jordan, Co-founder and COO of Augment, a company which works with many retailers to integrate immersive tech functionality into their offering. “In the meantime, the rise of the ‘endless aisle’ enabled by VR means that in the long run brick-and-mortar retailers will need to reduce the size of their stores drastically. The combination of physical and digital means much less space is required to show physical products, while a bit more space is required to provide high quality digital experiences.”

Ikea is one retailer that shows how this balance can be struck in a smart way by providing VR as an on-site service in strategic places where it makes sense to do so, such as helping shoppers build their kitchen with a specialist and visualize it in an immersive way. In parallel they also offer AR capabilities to let customers see how items look in their own home environment with the Ikea Place mobile app.

The world’s largest retailer, Walmart, has also embraced immersive technology in a wide variety of ways. They have actively explored the use of Mixed Reality technology such as the HoloLens to streamline its warehouse operations and recently integrated an AR functionality into their official app to help customers price-check items quickly in store (something that was created by a team of employees during an internal hackathon).

“When a customer launches the scanner, they get a direct connection between the digital and the physical world that their screen and camera lens creates for them,” says Tim Fields, Senior Engineering Manager at Walmart Labs.

In addition to filing patents for its own virtual showroom, the company also partnered with Spacee to create interactive Nest thermostat displays for several of their stores using what’s known as “post mobile AR” or “simulated reality” where any surface can be transformed into a touchscreen, effectively bypassing the need to use a device such as a tablet or smartphone.

Walmart’s most ambitious VR rollout to date, however, has been in staff training. They are scaling up their use of STRIVR’s VR training program on the Oculus Go in a bid to offer access to such training to every one of its U.S. based employees. Across the country, they will be sending 17,000 Oculus Go headsets to every Walmart supercenter, Neighborhood Market and discount store.

The world’s largest retailer, Walmart, has embraced immersive technology in a wide variety of ways
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Andy Trainor, Walmart’s senior director of U.S. Academies, says that the way VR promotes experiential learning translates into better results across the board: “When you watch a module through the headset, your brain feels like you actually experienced a situation. We’ve seen that VR training boosts confidence and retention while improving test scores 10 to 15 percent – even those associates who simply watched others experience the training saw the same retention boosts,” he explains.

“The immersiveness of well executed VR products and services creates an emotive connection between the employee and the content they are experiencing,” agrees Andy Mathis, Head of Partnerships, Oculus for Business. “We are seeing early results that when an employee feels a connection with training content through VR, they retain more of the training, and show better results, faster, in the execution of their jobs.  This illustrates very real ROI.”

Walmart plans to use VR to train associates in soft skills like empathy and customer service, and compliance, yet the technology is also particularly helpful in teaching employees how to use new technology. In a pilot test this summer, 10 of their stores used VR for training on new Pickup Tower units before they were even installed, with no instructors required on site. And although Walmart won’t share specific costs, it is clear that VR training compares favorably to traditional methods both in terms of pricing and flexibility, which is why, by the end of the year, the company aims that all of its more than 1 million associates will have had access to VR technology at their stores across the U.S.

“VR training helps us train more associates on a large variety of topics. We have more than 45 virtual reality training modules covering areas like compliance training, new technology and soft skills,” says Michelle Malashock, Corporate Communications at Walmart, adding that having access to the standalone Oculus Go headsets was a key part of scaling up the deployment.

“The portability and low price point of Oculus Go lends itself to scaled deployments, and the Walmart deployment of the Oculus Go in all 4,500+ of their US retail stores for employee training will represent a truly scaled, nationwide deployment of VR in a retail setting,” Mathis adds.

Joel Breton, VP Global VR Content at HTC Vive, believes there is vast untapped potential in virtual commerce: “The Immersive retail content category is an absolutely massive opportunity that has yet to be fully explored or developed by most retailers, he says. “At Vive Studios, we are very engaged with several retail partners to help them develop and deploy immersive v-commerce solutions to their business,” he explains.

Besecker concludes that they are “beyond encouraged” by these initial results, adding that customers seem to really love this new immersive way of shopping. “We hear the same things over and over again: The furniture looked and fit in the real world exactly like it did in VR; the process made them feel more confident in their purchases; they would not have purchased that day without the VR. The customers we’ve talked to enthusiastically recommend VR visualization to their friends and can’t wait to use it again.”

The immersiveness of VR products and services creates an emotive connection between the employee and the content they are experiencing
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If established retailers are able to use immersive technology to energize customers and give them reasons to not only visit their stores, but make more purchases and fewer returns, this could indeed prove a game changer for struggling high streets and provide a much-needed boost for the economy, as well as a way for people to become familiar with technologies such as VR without needing to commit to purchasing a headset for their home. It would be interesting if, rather than gaming or even porn, it was shopping that finally gave VR the biggest push towards mass-market adoption. Whether or not that’s the case will probably become clearer over the course of the next year or so as more merchants follow suit and bring out their own immersive offerings.

This article was originally published on UploadVR

With more retailers integrating immersive technologies in both their logistics and customer-facing operations, will consumers finally start buying into VR in a big way? #VRhttps://t.co/4NuBIxgk3D

— UploadVR (@UploadVR) November 20, 2018

For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Retailers Exploring VR appeared first on Tech Trends.

The way we process and share information is changing, and that has implications for how we do business too.

The latest report Truth, Trust & The Future of Commerce by Sparks and Honey, was created in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and examines the forces shaping the future of commerce.

We’re told that we live in the information age and that the modern digital economy is data-driven, but what does that mean in practice?
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This goes beyond just buying and selling, but also digs deeper into the commercial aspects involved in the exchange of information. We’re constantly told that we live in the information age and that the modern digital economy is data-driven, but what does that actually mean in practice?

This research dives deeper into a few areas of culture and innovation that are driving change in this space, including:

• How tech is “hacking humans” – voice tech and “camera culture” are fragmenting our reality/concept of truth and trust
• The major investment in genomics from the big tech players like Amazon, Google – how biotech will reshape commerce as we know it
• How cultural shifts/trends around production & consumption (like the growing trend of on-demand manufacturing – driven by advanced tech) and people & automation (jobless growth) are shaping the future of commerce

Biotech will reshape commerce as we know it
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See the slideshare presentation for the report below:

Voice tech & camera culture are fragmenting our concept of truth and trust
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For companies looking to leverage Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR Tech Trends offers a comprehensive range of Virtual Reality Consultancy Services.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Report: Trust and the Future of Commerce appeared first on Tech Trends.

Bad tech and bad service are never nice, but when they come from your favourite brand it feels like a betrayal.

Let me start this by saying I think Amazon.co.uk is FANTASTIC.

I preface with that because I’ve come to realize that for some US readers this will come as something of a cultural shock. Much like telling them that in England I don’t pay to go to a doctor or that I’ve never held a driver’s licence.

Amazon in the UK is fantastic. In the US it's another story entirely
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I know people have all sorts of valid issues against Amazon’s tax practices or cutthroat business strategy, but for the purpose of this rant let’s stick with the customer experience angle. And from that perspective, as I was saying, Amazon in the UK is VERY good.

Their app just works, their desktop site just works, the deliveries… just work. On the very rare occasions when things go slightly wrong, they’re quick to put it right. With a couple of swift finger strokes you can get pretty much anything delivered to your door, and as an Amazon Prime customer, 9 times out of 10 it arrives within 24 hours or less, even though I live in a small town in Somerset rather than, say, London, where you can get same-day delivery.

As an Amazon Prime customer in the UK, 9 times out of 10 I get what I order in 24 hours or less
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I get all my pet supplies and a bunch of household stuff on subscription, plus several orders a week ranging from perfume to electronics, books or bourbon. They get a lot of my money and I’m quite happy with that arrangement.

So having just moved to the US, one of the first things I did upon arrival was download the Amazon.com app and – since I don’t yet have a car – start ordering some things to save me having to pay for a $30 Lyft or harass my brother for a ride to the shops. “Walking Distance” is not really a thing over here.

I also went ahead and signed up for Amazon Prime, noting that here that only gets you free 2-Day delivery instead of next (or same) day. It was more expensive than in Blighty too, but hey, I figured that this is a much bigger country after all, so two days is still OK.

But two months is not.

Which is why this morning as I was talking to Amazon’s customer service people I started to wonder whether I was experiencing some sort jetlag-induced hallucination. But at the end of one of the most frustrating half-hours I’ve spent on the phone since I last tried booking a flight with British Airways, my worst fears were confirmed. Amazon in the US is nothing like what we get in the UK.

Amazon.com sold me a prime subscription with a promise of 2-day delivery, which turned out to be two months
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They deliberately sold me this service advertising delivery within two days. I filtered my searches so that they’d only show results eligible for Prime delivery, and upon checkout I selected the box that explicitly spelled out that I would get my item within 2 days.

Yet as soon as that order came through, it told me the window for delivery was that it would “usually be dispatched within 1-2 months”. I s**t you not.

Apparently, it makes sense that the 2-day delivery only kicks in once Amazon receives the item from the seller. So the entire Prime proposition is beyond worthless, as you have no idea whatsoever of when you’re going to get the item you ordered.

Apparently, it makes sense that the 2-day delivery only kicks in once Amazon receives the item from the seller
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Of course this wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last bad online shopping experience I’ll have, but when that level of WTF comes from a brand that you’ve used, trusted and swore by for close to two decades, it feels much more personal.

When that level of WTF comes from a brand that you’ve used, trusted and swore by for close to two decades, it feels like a betrayal
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So I’ve deleted my app, cancelled my “Prime” subscription, and will have to learn to cope with a more retro way of shopping. When in Rome… Go to Walmart

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post How Amazon Broke My Heart appeared first on Tech Trends.

Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality technologies will bring opportunities for merchants as consumer adoption grows.

There is high consumer interest to use VR for making purchase decisions while shopping online or in-store.
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While E-commerce and digital marketing have proven to be effective platforms, Virtual Reality (VR) is the next innovative technology that will improve and impact the retail and marketing sectors, with market-foresight advisory firm ABI Research forecasting that VR in retail and marketing sectors is expected to generate US$1.8 billion in 2022.

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Retail and marketing companies have realized that virtual reality technology can be an effective tool to further assist consumers with the purchase process and provide them with the ability to visualize and personalize the products more realistically,” says Khin Sandi Lynn, Industry Analyst at ABI Research.

Automotive companies and travel agencies are already using VR as a marketing tool, with applications such as virtual test drives and 360-degree tours becoming more widespread. E-commerce is another sector with a good potential for VR deployment. Chinese E-commerce company Alibaba has deployed its Buy+ mobile VR platform for better product visualizing. Alibaba integrates its Alipay payment platform to assist consumers making payment while browsing products using Buy+ VR.

“There is high consumer interest in using VR for making purchase decisions while shopping online or in-store. The availability of low-cost VR headsets is another driver of consumer VR use cases for purchasing products,” notes Lynn.

Walmart’s recent acquisition of VR software company Spatialand is another indicator of VR deployment as a retail solution in the future, as is their use of HoloLens for helping better manage their warehouse logistics. Consumers’ awareness together with investment by retailers and brands will drive the VR retail and marketing market.

VR can be used for market research to understand consumer behavior
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Walmart’s recent acquisition of VR software company Spatialand is another indicator of VR deployment as a retail solution in the future
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Furniture and home improvement stores have been early adopters of VR in the retail segment. VR is an effective platform for customers to view furniture, pick different parts, customize products, and/or visualize an item before making a purchase decision, and has been adopted both in-store and online to provide a better shopping experience to consumers.

IKEA and Lowe’s have successfully deployed Immersive Technologies in their stores
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Swedish furniture company IKEA and North American home improvement company Lowe’s are two examples that have successfully deployed it, as are Augment – a French company that Tech Trends met last year in Orlando, Florida, which builds syndicated catalogs of AR-ready products from the world’s major brands like Microsoft, Panasonic, Electrolux, and make it available to all retailers through an AR SDK, supporting ARKit / ARCore.

“The number one issue we’re hearing from retailers launching AR for eCommerce (Amazon, Build.com, Overstock, Wayfair…) is the management of 3D products,” explains the company’s Co-Founder and COO Mickaël Jordan. “It’s expensive, time consuming, and each retailer is basically building its own catalogue of similar AR-ready models of appliances, electronics and furniture. It’s nonsense,” he says.

Some of the key findings in ABI Research’s VR in Retail and Marketing report include:

• VR software and service revenue in retail and marketing will grow at CAGR 102% to generate $1.8 billion 2022.
• E-commerce and digital marketing has shifted the way brand and retailers market the products. VR is the next innovation in retail and marketing sector. The realistic feel provided by VR provides many benefits to retail and marketing; enhanced shopping experience, efficient marketing tool, more effective store management system etc.
• VR can also be used for market research to better understand consumer behavior.
• Furniture stores such as IKEA have deployed VR for product browsing, selection and customization. Lowe’s has another interesting VR deployment which allows shoppers to learn how to install their products.
• E-commerce and other sectors such as travel agencies are also starting to use VR to visualize products or try tours, hotels or flight experience before purchasing product or services.
• VR assists consumers in making purchase decisions, helping retail and marketing companies to achieve greater footfall and decrease returns rates.
• There is great interest from both retailers and consumers to use VR in purchasing process. However, deployment cost can be a challenge for smaller retailers and VR might not be the right platform for older generation consumers who are not yet familiar with the technology.

If you would like to find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Report: VR in Retail and Marketing to Generate US$1.8 billion in 2022 appeared first on Tech Trends.

In a recent PCMag article, Rob Marvin got hands-on with the Amazon Sumerian 3D development platform for building AR/VR apps and gives an in-depth overview of its features and the company’s broader Immersive Technology strategy.

One of Sumerian's biggest selling points is that despite how powerful the editor is, there's nothing to download or install.
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According to Marvin, Amazon’s decision to enter the AR/VR space with their Sumerian platform came down to a convergence of three factors: the emergence of smartphone-based augmented reality; untapped VR opportunities in the business-to-business (B2B) market; and helping AWS customers solve pain points with things they were already trying to do:

“The B2B applications include scenarios like interactive digital signage (think the giant talking hologram ads from Blade Runner: 2049), virtual training, and a host of industrial Internet of Things use cases, such as using sensors to create digital twins and complex simulations.The idea is that you have a high-quality, high-definition, context-aware sensor in the hands of billons of people.”

One of Sumerian’s biggest selling points, Marvin explains, is that despite how powerful the editor is, there’s nothing to download or install. During the demo, Sumerian loaded from a browser URL in seconds. Even doing real-time natural language processing (NLP) and rendering elaborate animations didn’t slow it down much.

“As with low-code development platforms, Sumerian can be used on a basic level with almost no developer experience. However, coders and data scientists can go a lot deeper with programmable APIs and Sumerian’s command-line interface to customize scenes and write complex app logic.”

In other words, the basic process for building a Sumerian app is the same regardless of the AR and VR platforms on which you ultimately publish it, you can jump straight into creating a new “scene” – default templates to choose from include office spaces, warehouses, a cargo ship, and a campfire.

“Sumerian plays not only in the 3D development space with platforms like Unity, Unreal Engine, and Vuforia, but also in the broader AR/VR ecosystem along with ARKit, ARCore, and Windows Mixed Reality. Between WebGL, WebVR, and WebXR, Sumerian is completely platform-agnostic, and Sumerian published native wrappers to integrate directly with ARKit and ARCore for smartphone-based AR apps. Sumerian can build apps for any platform that supports WebVR, meaning not only Oculus Rift and HTC Vive but also Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream View, and others. Sumerian is also working closely with the Google Chrome team on WebXR for browser-based apps.”

Amazon’s strategy, much like Microsoft’s is to make it not only possible, but easy and attractive for everyone to integrate with their platforms and developing tools – The “build once, run anywhere” philosophy.

“What we decided instead is to be as broad as possible in supporting what we think will be a massive market. We’re going after the underlying foundation,” an Amazon spokesperson explained.

Amazon hopes Sumerian can play a part in spurring the industry to make 3D mass market products and drive down the cost
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AI Hosts – 3D-animated characters you can place into an AR or VR scene – are another of Sumerian’s USPs. Users can ask hosts questions, and developers can script a complex set of actions, behaviours, gestures, and movements.

“With something called a point of interest system, you can check a box in the editor so the host’s eyes always pay attention to the camera. So if you’re wearing an HTC Vive Pro walking around a 360-degree space, the host can follow you. If it’s an AR app connected to your smartphone camera, Roche explained that Amazon’s Rekognition deep-learning system can run facial analysis of both where you are and where your face is in the frame to make it look like the host is looking back through your screen directly at you. It gives you the illusion of eye contact.”

Amazon is also scoping out ways to make it easier to create hosts, like using facial recognition to match rendered characters to real people. Additionally, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to integrate voice commands seamlessly into those experiences.

AI Hosts are one of Amazon Sumerian’s unique selling points
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“You can’t say “Hey Alexa” in a Sumerian app the same way you can activate Cortana within Windows Mixed Reality. Instead, Amazon uses the automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding APIs behind Alexa to let hosts have conversations… Imagine someone walking through a hotel lobby, a mall, or a stadium and seeing a host walking alongside them on a screen. It may sound a tad creepy, but hosts could also process contextual information like location to turn the ad into a personalized conversation.”

Amazon hopes Sumerian can play a part in spurring the industry to make 3D mass market products and drive down the cost. On the AR side, the basic enablers are in place thanks to ARKit and ARCore, and where it comes to VR, Amazon hopes to see hardware coming down in price, becoming less clunky to wear, and going wireless. According to their spokesperson:

“When that happens and you can wear a VR experience like a pair of glasses, VR will really take off. It needs to be as natural as watching a video on a tablet or a turning on a TV before it’s ready for mainstream consumption at the same level as the other screens we have today. Developing a whole ecosystem around it of content creators, advertisers, end-users, and companies catering to those users is how you do it.”

Another one of Amazon’s target use cases for Sumerian apps is education and training. Whether you’re learning how to use a medical device, service a vehicle, or learn a new language, it’s about dropping you in an environment that feels as visceral as possible like the real world.

Whether you’re learning how to use a medical device, service a vehicle, or learn a new language, it’s about dropping you in an environment that feels as visceral as possible like the real world
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You can read the full article on the PCMag Website

Stop the Presses! @PCMag takes a look inside Amazon Sumerian, a web-based development platform for creating AR, VR & 3D applications. https://t.co/oktcAxOmI9 pic.twitter.com/Bi4Olth5fA

— Amazon Web Services (@awscloud) April 17, 2018

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter

The post Amazon Betting on VR and AR appeared first on Tech Trends.

Retailers need a robust tech strategy to confront the rising cost of fraud.

Digital technology has brought a relentless wave of innovation, making it easier for customers all over the world to purchase what they want with a variety of payment methods – from credit cards to mobile wallets and even cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. While these innovations bring welcome convenience for the consumer and broaden the market for retailers, they have also driven sharp increases in the volume of fraudulent transactions merchants and issuers are subject to.

Retail fraud is a growing issue for merchants, who are increasingly looking for solutions that will help them deal with the problem in the long-term
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As more consumers opt to do their shopping online, accurately tracking purchases, verifying identity, and matching transaction data to customer information has become a great challenge. This is especially true for companies that do not have robust procedures in place for collecting and cross-referencing such data.

Retailers are keen to find solutions that tackle fraud without being too aggressive and putting customers off
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According to a recent CNBC article, retailers list fraudulent returns as a top concern, especially around the holiday season. Retail fraud is a growing issue for merchants, who are increasingly looking for solutions that will help them deal effectively with the problem in the long-term.

Loss Prevention Magazine estimates that return fraud has proved a significant drain for retailer profits this past holiday season. Of the $9 billion in losses attributable to return fraud last year, $2 billion took place during the holiday season, with more than 5 percent of holiday returns in 2017 expected to be fraudulent.

Due to the lack of visibility and direct customer engagement in online transactions, retailers are challenged to verify a shopper’s identity. Furthermore, there is often a lag between the time an order is placed and when that transaction is confirmed, opening the door for more errors or fraudulent activity.

“The larger volume of sales in the November and December months, especially around peak dates such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is invariably followed by a spike in cardholder disputes and chargebacks,” says Matthew Katz, CEO of Verifi, a leading global provider of end-to-end payment and risk management and card not present fraud and chargeback solutions.

Due to the lack of visibility and direct customer engagement in online transactions, retailers are challenged to verify a shopper's identity
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“For retailers,” Katz explains, “these chargebacks mean not only incurring fees from card networks and acquirers, but also losing holiday stock, absorbing additional shipping costs, and losing customer trust and future sales.

Of the $9 billion in losses attributable to return fraud last year, $2 billion took place during the holiday season
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“As consumers analyze the debt they’ve incurred during the holiday period, billing confusion and so-called ‘friendly fraud’ – where customers experience buyer’s remorse and dispute a legitimate transaction by going directly to the card issuer to obtain a refund – become an increasingly costly problem for both merchants and issuers,” he adds.

This issue continues to get worse. According to a 2017 report by Appriss Retail, total merchandise returns accounted for more than $351 billion in lost sales for U.S. retailers. To put that revenue in some perspective, the number comes close to the estimated 2017 federal budget deficit of $400 billion. Retail fraud and abuse accounted for a substantial share of these transactions – $17.6 to $22.8 billion in the United States.

This brings inevitable, and undesirable, consequences to consumers and the economy in general, as retailers are ultimately forced to offset losses by raising prices or reducing costs. This can in turn cause economic slowdown or stagnation, and ultimately lead to job losses. Last year alone, per the Appriss Retail report, return fraud cost U.S. retailers and workers between 596,000 and 775,000 jobs. Additionally, these fraudulent activities also have a significant negative impact in government tax revenues, with retail revenue losses costing states a total of $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion in lost sales taxes.

As more consumers opt to do their shopping online, accurately tracking purchases, verifying identity, and matching transaction data to customer information has become a great challenge
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Atlanta-based data analytics provider, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, recently surveyed over 650 risk and fraud executives from retail organizations. Their findings indicated that the level of fraud as a percentage of retailers’ revenue rose from 1.47 to 1.58 percent in the last year alone. It is little wonder that retailers recognize this problem as one they need to address with dedicated resources and a consistent integrated strategy.

Safeguarding the customer experience is a crucial consideration for retailers looking to implement fraud-tackling technology
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The LexisNexis study found that, although many retailers were investing in fraud monitoring, the results weren’t always effective. Companies found it difficult to strike a balance between being protective and turning away genuine customers and transactions. Retailers are keen to strike a balance between these two priorities, and to find solutions that tackle fraud without being too aggressive and putting customers off.

According to Kimberly Sutherland – a senior director of LexisNexis’ fraud and identity management strategy – many merchants don’t quite know how to achieve this balance. The problem she sees is that businesses often resort to a one-size-fits-all approach to fighting fraud, and they end up by deploying a limited set of solutions that are not up to the challenge. “These less advanced and less sophisticated legacy solutions do not appear to be working, given the sharp rise in costs and volume of successful fraud attempts,” she remarks.

According to Katz, retailing needs more effective data-sharing solutions in order to prevent such large-scale fraud without denting customer relations. “By leveraging emerging technologies, we can equip merchants and issuers with the right information, at the right place, and at the right time. This helps protect hard-earned revenue for merchants, and also helps them provide better service to consumers – allowing genuine fraud to be addressed quickly and more effectively, thus improving customer trust, retention, and loyalty.”

By providing the issuer with merchant information and robust order data – featuring customer identity and intent of sale – early on in the dispute process, it is possible to significantly help prevent such losses, argues Katz. He adds that issuing banks that neglect to include merchants early in the dispute process generate an unnecessarily high chargeback volume. Yet there is still a lack of awareness in the industry about which solutions are readily available to help them mitigate that problem.

Connecting the merchant and the issuer early in the dispute process can prevent the loss of millions of dollars in sales
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Integrating the sort of technology that companies like Verifi provide as a tailored service to merchants and issuers can help to dramatically reduce instances of fraud – and indeed help identify friendly fraud, thus saving the sale – while also improving customer relations. Through leveraging and cross-referencing of robust data, customers can enjoy a better overall experience of quick and hassle-free returns and claim legitimate refunds without ever feeling as if they’re being unfairly questioned or targeted.

Integrating the sort of technology that companies like Verifi provide as a tailored service to merchants and issuers can help to dramatically reduce instances of fraud
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Safeguarding the customer experience is a crucial consideration for retailers looking to implement fraud-tackling technology into their processes, as modern shoppers view flexible return policies as a right rather than a privilege. Customers might refuse to shop with retailers that choose to implement restrictions and checks on returns. Draconian policies could permanently cost a merchant legitimate customers, and therefore prove to be just as damaging as the mounting cost of retail fraud.

“Consumer awareness of their chargeback rights has increased,” says Julie Conroy, research director for Boston-based analyst firm Aite Group. “We’ve seen a doubling of the term ‘chargeback’ on Google for the past five years.”

In their research, Aite Group found that card issuers often give customers varying degrees of leeway when it comes to accepting evidence for granting a chargeback. Retailers complained to the firm that this lack of consistency led to mixed results from issuer to issuer. Chargebacks protect cardholders from fraud and give them recourse if goods are not as advertised, but the fact that this process is now easier for consumers also means that it is increasingly being abused.

“No one likes getting on a 13-minute call with their bank to dispute a charge,” Conroy says. “If you can allow them to do this digitally, you’re providing a better customer experience.” The other issue is cost: the average call is 13 minutes. “For some of these disputes, the consumer could be on the phone for 30 minutes,” she says. “That’s really expensive. The aggregate cost for U.S. issuers alone for call centers to field these calls is $2 billion a year.”

This is one of the reasons why so many merchants are now incorporating Software as a Services (SaaS) into their existing systems. Verifi’s Cardholder Dispute Resolution Network (CDRN), for example, is an innovative platform that enables issuers at the initiation of a dispute to redirect customer disputes to the merchant. In doing so, the chargeback process is paused up to 72 hours, allowing the merchant time to assess and resolve the dispute directly with their customer before it becomes a chargeback. In 2017, CDRN handled over 19 million disputes with an average 88% successful resolution rate on actionable disputes.

Yet even as retailers move towards embracing these comprehensive, high-tech fraud-prevention systems, offenders will inevitably continue to devise ways of taking advantage of any available loopholes. This is why it is important for SaaS providers such as Verifi to constantly improve their systems to stay ahead of the game. According to Katz, to address such needs, Verifi launched Order Insight in 2017 – an advanced collaboration platform that further applies this principle of intelligently connecting data from merchants to issuers and cardholders to access accurate and timely purchase data.

“Order Insight is the next phase in the evolution of our services, where all parties are connected to work together for mutual benefit. By being able to share and access data – such as purchase item description (size, color, style), date of purchase, merchant’s name and contact information, customer’s device used, IP address, etc. – the volume of chargebacks can be significantly reduced. This results in fewer fees and penalties imposed on merchants – but most importantly in the retention of sales and improved customer relations, all of which translate into increased profits.”

fraudulent activities also have a significant negative impact in government tax revenues, with retail revenue losses costing states a total of $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion in lost sales taxes
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Katz explains that “Order Insight enables issuers to access shared merchant data in near real-time at the initiation of a customer dispute. In addition to the goods or services in dispute, detailed information on the cardholder’s transaction history, previous disputes filed, refunds issued, and account delinquency are also instantly available, allowing each issue that arises to be efficiently dealt with to the benefit of all parties.”

The device (and type) that was used to make the purchase can be identified, in addition to the name, username, IP address, location, as well as phone number and email address included in the merchant’s customer profile to match the unique cardholder information with the bank’s system. Customers, too, have access to their order details through the issuer-hosted mobile or online banking application, providing immediate answers to a transaction query for a quick and painless resolution. If a transaction isn’t recognized, then the merchant name, address, customer service number and email address – as well as terms and conditions, warranty information and return policies – will be provided to resolve confusion created by vague descriptions on a statement. Whenever a dispute arises, each party will have access to the information to determine the legitimacy of the sale, thus reducing the impact of issues such as friendly fraud.

“Shared data can be beneficial in multiple fraud scenarios, and friendly fraud is no exception,” says Conroy, who believes that collaboration solutions, such as Verifi’s, are a crucial part of the industry’s fraud-fighting toolkit. “Connecting the merchant and the issuer early in the dispute process can prevent the loss of millions of dollars in sales,” agrees Katz, and that’s certainly something that merchants and issuers in an increasingly competitive and technology-driven retail landscape will need.

This article was originally published on World Commerce Review

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter

The post Tackling Retail Fraud with Technology appeared first on Tech Trends.

In a digital world, is there still room for good old-fashioned shops? Or are we moving towards a hybrid model?

While struggling brick-and-mortar retailers are often quick to blame the Internet for their problems, there’s clearly more to it. Why else would successful online retailers like Amazon, Warby Parker and Bonobos be hopping the digital fence to engage with shoppers in their preferred environment – the physical store?

Online retailers like Amazon, Warby Parker and Bonobos are hopping the digital fence to engage with shoppers in their preferred environment - the physical store
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Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods Market for the princely sum of $13.7 billion and announced plans to open 450 physical stores demonstrate how online and offline are coming together faster than many would imagine. Few retailers have truly taken advantage of the data from their stores, but the burgeoning online retail landscape is poised to pressure traditional brick and mortar brands to reinvent themselves and develop a robust omni-channel presence which in time may give them higher levels of customer loyalty and a competitive edge over purely e-Commerce competitors.

Some retailers are beginning to embrace technology by adopting a more data-centric approach to energizing their businesses
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In a customer-led retail landscape, consumers expect retailers to seamlessly adapt to the technologies they use every day, and retailers who fail to do so risk getting left behind. Some retailers are therefore beginning to embrace technology by adopting a more data-centric approach to energizing their businesses and helping their customer base thrive. And many are finding out that it is possible to do so without losing their brand identity or compromising the “personal touch”.

While struggling brick-and-mortar retailers are often quick to blame the Internet for their problems, there’s clearly more to it
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Bricks and mortar businesses do have the advantages of face to face interaction, immediate gratification and a palpable sensory experience, yet online retailers have been making hay in another area: analytics. Collecting data and mining it for gold – in the form of shopping habits and demographics – they can generate customer profiles to help them reach customers with personalised content and suggestions. With 90% of consumers stating that they use their smartphone whilst shopping in high street stores opportunity has never been greater for retailers to leverage technology to build additional in-store engagement and personalisation through analytics.

Bricks and mortar businesses do have the advantages of face to face interaction, immediate gratification and a palpable sensory experience
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While this approach is in its early stages, it has certainly picked up considerable momentum in recent years, Despite a difficult retail climate, the John Lewis partnership announced a 22.6% leap in online sales as they celebrated their 150th anniversary as a high street retailer in 2014, with more than three quarters of its site traffic on Christmas day coming via mobile devices. With profits looking healthy and mobile increasingly part of those sales, John Lewis has been developing its ‘Click & Collect’ service to further merge the online and offline customer experience and make the purchasing process frictionless for their customers.

Consumer research consistently reveals that customers are not looking for overly complicated responsive design. They’re looking for simplicity, speed and consistency
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The John Lewis app features a barcode scanner, allowing users to easily check online stock levels of items they’ve seen in store, as well as a simple straightforward way to contact customer services directly (whether checking an order enquiry or request a price match), making customer contact as convenient as possible. As a result of this unified approach, a further 60% increase in sales via their click and collect system was reported.

As a result of its unified approach John Lewis reported a 60% increase in sales via their click and collect system
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Consumer research consistently reveals that customers are not looking for overly complicated responsive design or differentiation between a retailers apps, website or high street stores. They’re looking for simplicity, speed and consistency, and retailers need to address this in whatever way makes most sense for their business and their customers.

These trends, championed by the most successful brands in both online and offline retailing, suggest that achieving success in future retail is an “and” not an “or” proposition
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Directing resources towards mobile marketing is clearly an investment, yet as the success of the John Lewis strategies clearly demonstrate, it can bear significant dividends. Embracing tailored, data-driven technology in a strategic way can rapidly foster and improve customer interaction, and this translates in better sales and higher returns.

Directing resources towards mobile marketing is clearly an investment, yet as the success of the John Lewis strategies demonstrate, it can bear significant dividends
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These trends, championed by the most successful brands in both online and offline retailing, suggest that achieving success in future retail is an “and” not an “or” proposition. Rather than squandering the advantage they have over Internet retailers, brick-and-mortar businesses of all shapes and sizes need to be willing to leverage it with an updated, real-time approach to consumer engagement via mobile and tailored apps. Where there’s data and technology, there’s opportunity, and it’s a more complex picture out there than it might seem at first, as the handy infographic below from Shopping.fm shows:

The post Infographic: Will E-Commerce Replace Bricks and Mortar Retailers? appeared first on Tech Trends.