After more than a year when most of us had no choice but to do most of our shopping online, Lush was far from the only retailer which had to rely heavily on technology to keep going. Yet even now as things seem to be returning to something closer to a pre-pandemic reality and we look forward to going getting out of the house to go shopping (imagine!) that doesn’t mean we have to give up all the benefits that technology can add to making the retail experience better.

Lush Lens was designed to offer customers a packaging-free and contact-free shopping experience.
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With that in mind, the handmade cosmetics company has just relaunched the Lush App, developed in collaboration with Saleor using open-source technology in line with Lush’s Digital Ethics Mission Statement. It will allow customers to browse product ranges with improved search optimisation, a new checkout process, and new ways to pay.

Lush Lens has had 2.6 million scans since its launch on iOS in 2018
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The app – which is now available in the UK on iOS and Android – features for the first time one of the most successful #LushLabs features, called Lush Lens, a mobile AR feature which was designed by Lush’s in-house tech R&D team to offer customers a packaging-free and contact-free shopping experience.

Lush Lens has had 2.6 million scans since its launch on iOS in November 2018, prompting the company’s founder, Mark Constantine, to assert that the technology had the potential to revolutionize the packaging industry, and even possibly eliminate it.

“At Lush we make products by hand, with fresh and ethically sourced ingredients, and this informs our digital products too. I’m so proud of the new platform the teams have created which showcases the best of what we can do – ethical treatment of customers’ data, created using open source technologies and providing a five star customer experience, with a few Lush surprises along the way,” says Jack Constantine, Chief Digital Officer at Lush.

Lush Digital believes in ethical tech that ultimately gives back more than it takes from society and the environment
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Lush champions ethical hardware, ethical data, ethical design and open source technologies. Just as the company ethically sources ingredients, Lush Digital believes in ethical tech that ultimately gives back more than it takes from society and the environment.

Adam Goswell, Lush Tech R&D, believes that such technology can add (not replace) in giving quality, up to date information in matching customers with the perfect product.

“If we can reduce the time spent at the till or eliminate the queue (which we all hate) then technology is really going to elevate the retail experience to be much more about human interaction and experience,” he believes.

Tech Trends’  Consultancy services offer support for companies looking to enhance their brand’s digital strategy with immersive and emerging technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a technology journalist, communications consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter

The post Getting a Post-Pandemic Digital Makeover 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.

Companies can now track where a users’ gaze wanders and use that data to design fine-tuned experiences.

Eye-tracking technology is nothing new in itself, but it is gaining rapidly both in scope and popularity as immersive virtual experiences become more widely used both in business and leisure contexts.

This type of technology is a natural fit for VR, as most headsets have inbuilt eye-tracking technology to allow them to deliver immersive experiences in the first place, as gaze is one of the primary ways in which you interact with those types of environment.

Eye-tracking technology is gaining in scope and popularity as immersive virtual experiences become more widely used
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This type of technology is a natural fit for VR, as most headsets have inbuilt eye-tracking technology to allow them to deliver immersive experiences
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After developing eye-tracking commercial solutions for years, Swedish company Tobii Pro is now bringing to market a new analytical tool which leverages these capabilities in Tobii Pro VR.

The tool integrates into Unity environments and allows eye-tracking studies to be conducted within 3D virtual reality environments. It also comes with automated features for visualizing and measures what a user sees, tracking their interactions and navigations within a simulated world.

“Using eye tracking within a VR environment helps us better understand how people navigate around a space. We can design better wayfinding systems and start to explore issues much earlier”, said David Watts, Managing Director of consultancy firm CCD Design & Ergonomics. “We want to bring evidence into the design process, the visualizations tell us what people actually look at and how their attention is drawn to different design interventions we make. This methodology is so much more powerful than relying on our own intuition about what does and doesn’t work. It also provides a great visual record to demonstrate behaviors to others in the design team”.

Access to analytics from eye-tracking data, navigation and interactions is instant and visualizations are automated, with heat and opacity maps showing the points in a VR landscape that received the most attention. Scene overview with path maps illustrate how one or multiple study participants moved through the scene providing an understanding for foot traffic and potential bottleneck areas.

Gaze is one of the primary ways in which you interact with VR
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With Instant access to eye-tracking analytics, brands, retailers and designers are able to analyze the key influencers of behavior and decision-making throughout the consumer journey, according to Tom Englund, President, Tobii Pro.

A retailer, for example, can quickly iterate between layouts of a store design and track the visual attention to arrive at one that is optimized to how shoppers walk the space and pick up items along the way, while commercial brands can test variations of product packaging within a realistic virtual store setup to see which are most likely to get picked from the shelf by the customer.

With attention spans getting ever shorter and users perceptual vigilance getting more difficult to bypass, this kind of analytics is gaining in popularity
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With Instant access to eye-tracking analytics, brands, retailers and designers are able to analyze the key influencers of behavior and decision-making throughout the consumer journey
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There are many other potential applications of this type of technology beyond sales and consumer engagement, however. A manufacturing company can place workers in different training scenarios to evaluate reactions and responses. Eye tracking will help determine what can be done to help workers identify the warning signs of an accident before one occurs. As Englund explains, this new VR analysis tool opens up the possibility for much more efficient, engaging and safer training of individuals particularly in complex and high-risk occupations such as industrial, medical, and emergency response.

“Eye tracking has proved to be a natural part of VR, and the launch of Tobii Pro VR Analytics is major step towards our larger vision to also provide businesses and researchers with the tools to capture insights from these immersive environments. VR puts you in complete control of an environment while eye tracking explains our behavior while in that world – a powerful combination making the behavioral insights accessible to many more people.”

Within a hospital environment, for instance, it is possible to deploy this technology to accurately simulate specific types of surgery (in fact there are many products which also add a haptics layer to those simulations for even greater levels of realism) and observe the attention and visual skills of surgeons as they practice performing complex techniques. This allows teachers and supervisors to track factors such as how aware a student is of their surroundings or how often they check instruments and displays for example. It also allows them to make mistakes and get constructive and concrete feedback on those without impacting on a real patient’s health.

Eye tracking has proved to be a natural part of VR
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“A construction company could lay out a whole building design during the concept phase and track people’s attention and navigation to determine optimal placement of signage and functions such as emergency exits,” adds Englund.

With attention spans getting ever shorter and users perceptual vigilance getting more difficult to bypass, this kind of analytics is gaining in popularity. One clear advantage of relying on eye-tracking techniques is that it tends to capture much more candid results, as you are not relying on eliciting verbal responses from the user. In fact, users might not always be aware of where their attention is wandering, as many such moves happen on the periphery of our consciousness, so the combination of eye tracking and VR can uncover the factors that drive human attention across an unlimited number of scenarios.

This article was originally published on Forbes

Looking Through Your User’s Eyes With Virtual Reality Gaze Trackinghttps://t.co/Mj9Vog5ywm

— Forbes Tech News (@ForbesTech) June 21, 2018

To find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your enterprise, Tech Trends offers bespoke 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 and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post #BuildTheFuture > Gaining Behavioural Insight with Eye-Tracking VR Tech 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.

Retailers need to embrace emerging technologies like AR if they are to stay competitive. 

In this VentureBeat article by Michael Park, I talk about how immersive technologies can reverse the implosion of retail and incentivise customers to physically visit shopping locations.

Immersive technologies can reverse the implosion of retail and incentivise customers to physically visit shops
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The broader trend in retail, particularly among millennials, is a shift in focus from products toward experiences. For this reason, many customers still choose to visit a physical shop even if it may be more convenient to order the item online. People still, at large, value the interaction and experience that comes with physical location shopping. For retailers, this presents an opportunity to leverage technology to literally augment the value of their products for their customers.

Alice Bonasio is a journalist and consultant who covers the AR and VR industry. She expands on this point, “the ability for customers to ‘try before you buy’ will result in a reduction in churn, one of the major pain points for retailers. When it comes to larger items like furniture or household appliances, one of the biggest drawbacks for consumers is that they misjudge the amount of space they have available or dislike the way the item looks once it’s actually in their home. This buyer’s remorse is a huge drain on resources for retailers.”

AR allows customers to see an item in-store and then project it realistically back at home before finalizing the process by placing the order online
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Bonasio continues, “However, AR allows customers to see an item in-store and then project it realistically back at home before finalizing the process by placing the order online. Such omnichannel experiences will make in-person shopping a value add to the consumer and help retailers avoid churn.”

AR isn’t a gimmick — it’s a savior for local retail https://t.co/PE0QSW3kPu

— VentureBeat (@VentureBeat) December 12, 2017

If you would like to find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your own project or 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 Reviving Retailers with Augmented Reality appeared first on Tech Trends.

Cyber Week and Black Friday shopping figures are in, and show how businesses that embrace technology are thriving in the digital age.

In the run-up to Cyber Week, experts were already predicting a huge holiday season for e-commerce, but with Black Friday and Cyber Monday now behind us and Christmas just over two weeks away, it is safe to say that 2017 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year, especially for mobile.

In the run-up to Cyber Week experts were predicting a huge holiday season for e-commerce
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The National Retail Federation reported that 81 million U.S. residents shopped online on Cyber Monday, compared with 66 million on Black Friday. According to Bigcommerce, an e-commerce platform which serves thousands of merchants worldwide, during Cyber Five, the five-day shopping period spanning Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, brands using their services experienced an average sales increase of 21%, which is 4% above the industry average.

2017 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year, especially for mobile
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Cyber Monday was the biggest sales day for online and for mobile ever in the US
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This was also the first year in which mobile orders surpassed desktop sales volume during Cyber Five. In 2016, 54% of orders were on desktop devices, and 46% originated from mobile devices. In 2017, mobile orders accounted for 54% of all orders, surpassing desktop on all Cyber Week days. The data also revealed that iPhone users spent 7.1% more during Cyber Five than Android users.

Cyber Monday was in fact the biggest sales day for online and for mobile ever in the US. While online sales amounted to a total of $6.59 billion mobile broke a new record by reaching $2 billion. The Verge reported that mobile also dominated over desktop for the first time for Shopify merchants, which include brands as varied as Tesla Motors and Kylie Cosmetics, according to the company.

This was also the first year in which mobile orders surpassed desktop sales volume during Cyber Five
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People now have different expectations of how technology should enable shopping experiences
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These numbers tell an interesting story, because they illustrate how far consumer behaviour has shifted in recent years. People now have different expectations of how technology should enable shopping experiences, and businesses that don’t meet those expectations will inevitably lose sales.

These numbers illustrate how far consumer behaviour has shifted in recent years
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None of this happened overnight, of course. Brands have long been investing in ways to leverage data to build customer profiles, inform their marketing strategy and outreach, and refine their sales funnels. But the capacity to extract actionable insights from large datasets was traditionally reserved for bigger companies such as Amazon, who had the vast resources required to dedicate to this. Advances in AI and machine learning have, however, democratized access to such insights and tools, and started to level out the playing field.

Advances in AI have democratized access to insights and tools, and started to level out the playing field
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And this, according to Jimmy Duvall, BigCommerce’s Chief Product Officer, is a key part of the value that platforms such as his can offer to smaller merchants, equipping them with the tools and insights that allow them to offer experiences on par with the likes of Amazon.

“BigCommerce looks at same-store sales to determine the real increase in revenue and orders data year over year for ecommerce brands on the platform with insights into category-specific insights, device trends and purchase activity by region,” he explained. “The significant increase in same-store sales this year further highlights that small and mid-sized retailers continue to thrive, even as Amazon and other industry heavyweights expand into new markets and categories. We fully expect this to be the biggest and most successful online selling season in history.”

This doesn’t mean that smaller merchants are only in competition with larger platforms such as Amazon, Google Shopping or Ebay, however. We live in an age where consumers demand omnichannel experiences, and e-commerce platforms need to provide an open architecture that can be seamlessly connected to other business applications, reducing complexity and operational costs for merchants wherever possible. In practice, that means that merchants can use a single product catalogue to sell their wares across a variety of channels in a frictionless way.

Merchants can use a single product catalogue to sell their wares across a variety of channels in a frictionless way
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BigCommerce supports services such as PayPal One Touch, which boasts an enviable conversion rate of 87.5%
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Steve Fusco, vice president and general manager of global distribution at PayPal, says they thrive on this collaborative approach, which means, for example, that BigCommerce supports services such as PayPal One Touch, which boasts an enviable conversion rate of 87.5%.

This year, however, merchants also gained access to data from PayPal Marketing Solutions, which provides insight into customers’ buying behaviours and lets merchants add customized banners to their online stores.

“BigCommerce and PayPal have much in common at the core of our businesses,” said Fusco in a statement, “and through our expanded relationship we are delivering access to fully integrated products and services that help merchants increase sales and average order value.”

Offering customers an array of choices not only in terms of product, but financing, has been one of the key factors in this explosive sales growth. “Since offering PayPal Credit, we’ve seen a significant increase in orders and conversion with lower cart abandonment rates,” said Abe Issa, CEO of Florida-based online retailer DealBeds.com.

Data creates opportunities to improve in-store experiences
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E-commerce is being driven by insight, and brands both great and small are embracing data to reflect their customer needs and by giving their customers what they want, reap the financial rewards of site experience enhancement, optimised checkout and platform modernisation.

Data creates opportunities to improve in-store experiences and make customer service provision more agile and efficient. As platforms continue to integrate big data into their offering, we will continue to see the consumer journey improve across all sectors. The adoption of the developing mobile and AI technologies will increasingly enable retailers to deliver experiences that are perfectly tailored to each customer and market.

E-commerce is being driven by insight, and brands are embracing data to reflect their customer needs
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The future of retail is doubtless going to be immersive, experiential, and personalised, and that paints a bright picture for businesses that embrace technology and innovation.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post

Why E-commerce Needs to Look Beyond the Shopping Cart https://t.co/125ti2BlB2

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) December 10, 2017

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 Holiday Shopping is Getting Techy appeared first on Tech Trends.