It’s AR that impacts a lot on Consumers and Shopping

It’s time to spread a virtual layer on top of the real-world information. Yes, you guessed it right! It’s an Augmented Reality (AR) technology that has started gaining ground in the corporate sector. Today, many entrepreneurs leverage the benefits of augmented reality apps development while addressing ever-changing business requirements. AR is already considered as a future of mobile games with the arrival of an exciting Pokémon Go mobile game that has witnessed phenomenal 100 million downloads in just a few weeks!

Though AR offers endless opportunities across various industry sectors, I am going to confine it to FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) and retail sector. Read on to find out how AR impacts consumer needs, and as a retailer, how you can add a ‘wow’ factor in marketing using this amazing technology.

AR offers an immersive and emotional experience that can remain memorable in the mind of your customers for a long time. You can promote products and services through using the new wave of technology called AR.

AR facilitates you to expand your business in the growing market of tech-savvy customers through enticing and engaging them. For example, Heinz Ketchup bottles have the label that can launch a quiz game that the customers can play while waiting for food in the restaurant. On the one hand, such a game makes family time more meaningful, and on the other hand, it strengthens the bonding with the product. Another example is of De Beers. The world-known jewelry company has an AR tool that enables you to try its branded jewelry virtually.

How can AR change consumer behavior?
The customer can change the shopping behavior using AR as they get a different physical experience at the PoS (Point of Sale). From finding new products to deciding which products to buy, the AR technology takes care of every aspect of shopping through enhancing the physical environment of a brick-and-mortar store or a shopping mall.
However, marketers and retailers have to resist the urge of coming up with hastily-made AR applications that can fail to serve the purpose. As a retailer, it is necessary for you to understand how AR differs from other technologies including VR to realize its full potential. You can also take help of an Augmented Reality app developer for developing highly interactive AR apps. You need to remember a key difference of an AR: It has an ability to overlay virtual content on any items found in the physical world while allowing both of them to interact in real time.

AR does not create a new reality; it just enhances the reality for offering better shopping experience and thereby changing consumer behavior.

In a way, AR has a significant impact on the customer’s emotional and behavioral responses, and the marketers need to understand AR’s role in overall marketing pattern.

Apart from enhancing the online shopping experience, there is no exaggeration in saying that the modern day AR is capable of changing the consumer needs as the virtual world fits well with the physical and interacts with it. The futuristic AR technology has found its place in the retail segment as retailers have started jumping on the AR bandwagon. If any retailer misses the opportunities offered by AR, then chances are high that they may find themselves in an awkward situation in the future amid growing competition.