How to help your ecommerce business grow in spite of the lockdown? Here comes Augmented Reality!

Because of the coronavirus crisis, most businesses face a difficult time right now, sales-wise. In this article we will try to tackle the question presented in the title and offer some advice. We will show you a modern sales tool that could improve your sales, engage your customers and make you more at ease when it comes to running your business. If you are selling physical products like furniture, RTV, household appliances, or other goods that customers purchase for their homes, read along!

How to keep selling your product when you cannot run your business normally?

Currently many shops are closing or have already closed their doors and the bulk of commerce went online, where the problem lies in limited interaction. Usually, the sales process in a brick-and-mortar store allowed for the customers to get familiar with the product, be it a new fridge or a sofa. After he or she got enchanted with it in real-life, buying it was much easier. Right now, the customers are less likely to make spontaneous purchasing decisions, especially when it involves something that we could consider non-essential. What could solve this problem and be very desirable in the current situation is to somehow bring the real shopping experience to people’s homes. Augmented Reality is the perfect solution for this problem and a growing trend in 2020. 

What is Augmented Reality (AR) and how can it help your business?

AR, the short for Augmented Reality, begins with us digitizing your physical products and creating 3D models out of them. Then, through the magic of zero’s and one’s we create a mobile application thanks to which the customers can see your products on their floor or on their table. They can also move them around, change the color, open or close doors (e.g fridge/ washing machine), and most importantly – purchase them through the application. 

Perhaps it would be best to show you how it works based on real-life examples. Below you will find our best case studies for Augmented Reality in ecommerce.

Case Study – Maker & Son – Augmented Reality for the furniture market

We were approached by Maker & Son, a UK based company and asked to create an AR tool, which will allow them to go a step further than Instagram pictures and bring their products closer to their customers. This beautiful, cozy furniture were a perfect fit for AR – just look how great the 3D models look in the context of this apartment.

As you can see, the customers can very easily check whether the piece of furniture fits their home and also they can add multiple pieces to see how a whole set would look. Since the size of the virtual models is virtually the same as the real furniture – customers can make more informed purchasing decisions after playing around with the application – and it is more like play, which is a benefit in and of itself.

Case Study – Browning – Augmented Reality for Gun Safes

Another example is from the US – Browning – a company with more than 100 years of tradition in manufacturing weapons & accessories. Their gun safes are well known not only in the US, but all over the world. Thanks to AR customers can check out their safes even in countries with limited access to Browning sales points where you can see the real product.

It was an interesting case, which also helped our customer create a deeper connection with their customers. They organized a contest, alongside the marketing campaign to promote the app, where one could win a gun safe!

Case Study – Cash Piscine – Augmented Reality Swimming Pools

Last but not the least, our application for Cash Piscine, a company from France which owns over 90 shops that sell swimming pools. Thanks to our app, each client can configure and preview his dream swimming pool and easily send a request for a quote to the nearest sales office with just few simple clicks. Thanks to AR even unconventional products can be sold through online channels without the need to visit a sales office. Just take a look at this video!

What is worth mentioning is that swimming pools might not be a priority during the lockdown however our customer is still counting sales from the application. Who would have thought that swimming pools would still be selling like hot cakes in the times of the pandemic? Well… the summer has not been cancelled yet!

Want to know more about Augmented Reality?

We have many more examples of this technology working for the benefit of both our customers and our customers’ customers