Understanding the role of augmented reality in e-commerce

Augmented reality (AR) technology is one of the most interesting capabilities of modern smartphones. As technology progresses, the use cases multiply in every business sector. AR is moving us on to a completely new context in how we use the smartphone camera: not only to take pictures, but to add a digital layer on top of our reality. With regard to e-commerce, it can be said that in general many activities are aimed at mapping physical commerce functions online (e.g. personalization, curated shopping). AR not only supports such efforts but also serves to enrich the real world.

The users, as well as the content producers, need to understand what it means to use AR effectively and progressively. During our Connecta Bern workshop, we will address key topics relating to the past, present and future of AR with a special focus on e-commerce. In this blog post, you can read an excerpt on the future of AR.

The future of augmented reality is considered to be “as bright as the stars”. Various market researchers predict high stakes by 2021 for both investments and AR’s daily user base. Since 2018, we have seen more and bigger players entering the AR market, more and more engaging campaigns, and innovative e-business cases, such as Wanna Kicks by Wannaby.

With 2021 just around the corner, we would like to focus on three topics relating to the future of augmented reality. The list is huge, but there is not enough space to address all the points here. The challenges we feature in this article are what we love to address in our research at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland. We’re constantly debating and raising awareness, as well as developing new experiences and business strategies with our partners in AR matters.

1. Replay value

Replay value applies to any kind of digital product. Whether it’s an application, a website or an augmented reality experience, the replay value plays a key role in the success of the product. The term originates from games and is used to assess a game’s potential for continued play value after its first completion. An AR application with low replay value would feel too obvious or even irritating after a few minutes. An AR application with high replay value, on the other hand, can retain users for months or longer — before you ask, I’ve not seen that unicorn yet. (On a personal note, my highest replay value AR application is, actually, Magic Sudoku, an evil AI/AR app that solves and displays the hardest Sudoku puzzles instantaneously.)

There are multiple strategies and best practices out there, most of which are appropriated from video games, but there is not a clear solution for e-commerce. The high replay value on e-commerce sites follows best practices known for years. In this aspect, our research team looks at the issues case by case and identifies different strategies to improve and increase the replay value of the augmented reality experience.

2. Interactive experiences

Regardless of context or content, most of the augmented reality applications that are available on the App Store/Play Store are developed to visualize a digital artefact, such as “see-before-you-buy” product visualizations. Effectively, interactive holograms can add an exciting new dimension to customer touch-points beyond imagination. AR can be used to engage the users to try functionalities of the products and also optimize the commonly painful touchpoints such as information exchange, providing extra services or even handling transactions.

There’s a lot to learn from creative minds. We’re monitoring the industry use cases and developers’ updates that are pioneering the innovative interactions and implementing the new methods to experience in AR.

3. Shared view

Where we are today in 2019, shared view is one of the hardest challenges. Mobile-based AR is an individualized experience that can be viewed through only one screen at a time. Shared view in AR refers to multi-screen/multi-user experiences with real-time visualizations. Multi-user AR is taking small steps, offering very basic shared experiences nowadays, however many of the big players are addressing this issue and implementing showcases where multiple users can experience the same augmented experience with multiple devices. You might have seen some of the case studies using Microsoft Hololens, where several users observe the same hologram in the middle of the room.

ETH Zurich researchers look at the same hologram using multiple Microsoft Hololens devices. Video credit: Youtube / ETH Zurich

However, for the mobile-based AR, this topic remains an under-explored challenge. In the coming months (maybe years), we should see more multi-user experiences which will connect users regardless of device, location or the medium, in which people who are using the same AR experience can share the same view of a hologram in real time.

TL;DR*

AR is the new playground for creative applications and it possesses huge potential for brands to impress their customers. We are supporting the idea of smarter AR and contextually flawless experiences. There are many challenges for AR to gain greater acceptance from users. We listed three of these challenges above: higher replay value, better interactive holograms and multi-screen/multi-user shared view. In our workshop during Connecta Bern, we’ll address many topics on the challenges of AR, particularly in e-commerce. We’ll also share tips to create successful AR experiences.

(*: too long; didn’t read)

Prof. Dr. Uwe Leimstoll and Safak Korkut will hold two sessions on this topic at Connecta Bern.