Top 10 Augmented Reality Use Cases in Retail & E-commerce

Augmented Reality has proved to be a game-changer for brands and companies across industries and verticals. Especially in the retail & e-commerce sector, AR has truly revolutionized the whole experience for the customers, providing immersive experiences that lead to higher customer satisfaction, enhanced customer retention, and boost revenue generation.
With AR in retail and e-commerce, a customer gets higher transparency which in turn allows for better shopping decisions.
AR has wide-scale applications and can truly bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping experiences.
To get a better idea as to how AR works in the retail industry, let us look at the top 5 augmented reality use cases in Retail & E-commerce:

1. Home Depot

Home Depot (Home Depot, Inc.), is one of the largest home improvement retailers in the US. They supply tools, construction products, and provide related services.
With an aim of expanding their functionality, Home Depot in the year 2017, used augmented reality in their main mobile application. This addition of AR in this app allowed users to visualize and see Home Depot merchandise in 3D right in front of them. Right from refrigerators to chandeliers, a user could view these products in hyper-reality, thus, providing an amazing-interactive-immersive experience.
This app gained immense popularity and was even ranked the number one retailer mobile app by Forrester Research for its functionality and user experience.

Home Depot

Home improvement company
…
The Home Depot, Inc., commonly known as Home Depot, is the largest home improvement retailer in the United States, supplying tools, construction products, and services. The company is headquartered in incorporated Cobb County, Georgia, with an Atlanta mailing address
Headquarters: Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Revenue: 11,020 crores USD (2019)
CEO: Craig Menear
Founded: February 06, 1978; Georgia, USA
Number of locations: 2,312
Subsidiaries: Home Depot of Canada, HD Supply, Blinds.com
Founders: Arthur Blank, Ron Brill, Bernard Marcus, Pat Farrah, Ken Langone

2. Magnolia Market

Magnolia Market is one of the most popular shopping complexes in Texas. It encompasses two city blocks in downtown Waco, built in 1950.
They asked Shopify to create an app for them in 2017. With this app, a user can witness an in-store experience right from the comfort of their homes.
This allows users who can’t visit the store in Texas, to still feel as if they are inside the store. It catches even the minute details and provides an authentic hands-on feel to the users.
This app multiplied the number of customers for Magnolia Market by doing away with the demographic hindrance and lead to a wide-scale increase in revenues.

Magnolia Market

Retail store at Magnolia Market Complex, Waco, TX
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Magnolia Market at the Silos, commonly called Magnolia Market, is a shopping complex that encompasses two city blocks in downtown Waco, Texas. It is marked by two 120’ high silos, built in 1950 as part of the Brazos Valley Cotton Oil Company.
Address: 601 Webster Avenue, Waco, USA
Opened: 30 October 2015
Owner: Magnolia Market, LLC
Floor area: 20,000 sq ft (1,900 m2)
Number of stores: 3

3. IKEA

IKEA is a multinational conglomerate (multi-industry company) that designs and sells home accessories, kitchen appliances, and ready-to-assemble furniture, and many other goods and services and has been the largest furniture retailer in the world since 2008.
To make the user experience more satisfying and engaging, IKEA developed an augmented reality app called ‘IKEA Place.’
With this app, a user can simply scan the dimensions of their living room, and based on the available space, the app would recommend what furniture would fit the space best. Moreover, a user can also view the 3D visuals of the furniture in their own space and get a fair idea about how it would look in the particular room even before buying.
This ‘try-before-you-buy’ led to better shopping decisions and in turn, enhanced customer satisfaction, and higher shopping confidence.

IKEA

…
Type: Private
Industry: Retail
Founded: 28 July 1943; in Sweden
Founder: Ingvar Kamprad
Headquarters: Delft, Netherlands
Number of locations: 445 (2021)
Products: Ready-to-assemble furniture, homeware, food products

4. Wayfair

An American e-commerce company, Wayfair Inc. (formerly known as CSN Stores), sells household goods and furniture. With warehouses throughout the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, etc., their digital platform offers over 14 million items from more than 11,000 suppliers across the globe.
Wayfair inculcated AR functionality in their mobile shopping app called ‘View in Room 3D.’ This allowed users to view Wayfair’s furniture within their homes in hyper-reality by simply using their smartphone device.
Just like IKEA, the whole AR tech application in their mobile app completely transformed the whole furniture shopping experience for millions of shoppers and led to higher conversion rates.

Wayfair

…
Type: Public
Industry: E-commerce
Founded: August 2002
Founder: Niraj Shah, Steve Conine
Headquarters: 4 Copley Place, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Services: Online shopping

5. Target

Component of the S&P 500 Index, Target is the eighth-largest retailer in the United States of America.
With their “See it in your space” feature launched in 2017, Target enables its customers to digitally see the 3D models of the products right in front of them.
This 3D view of the products allows for better product understanding and allows a user to purchase exactly what they want or need.

Target

…
Revenue: 9,356.1 crores USD (2021)
Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
CEO: Brian Cornell (12 Aug 2014–)
Founded: 1902, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Founder: George Dayton
Number of employees: 4,09,000 (2020)
Subsidiaries: Shipt, Target Brands, Inc, Target Creative

6. Amazon

One of the household names across the globe, Amazon is an American MNC, an online shopping platform that focuses primarily on e-commerce, digital streaming, along with cloud computing and artificial intelligence.
With a new feature known as ‘Amazon AR View’, Amazon’s official shopping site allows iPhone users to view products, furniture, gadgets, etc. virtually without having to give up on the comfort of being at home.
This Amazon AR View feature has truly redefined the whole online shopping experience for customers.

Amazon

…
CEO: Andy Jassy
Founder: Jeff Bezo
Founded: 5 July 1994; Washington, USA
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Subsidiaries: Zappos, Whole Foods Market, Audible, AbeBooks

7. Apple

The world’s largest technology company in terms of revenue, Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company specializing in computer software, online services, and consumer electronics.
During the pandemic, Apple decided to bring their physical stores to the customers than the other way round. Using AR technology, Apple was able to showcase their products to their customers in hyper-reality, and a customer could relive the in-store experience without having to step out of their house.
AR Quick Look allows new iPhone or iMac users to see the products virtually in 3D, with a 360-degree view and enhances engagement and interaction multifold.

Apple

…
CEO: Tim Cook
Founders: Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne
Founded: 1 April 1976, California, United States
Headquarters: Cupertino, California
Subsidiaries: Apple Store, Beats Electronics, inc., NextVR, Beddit

8. ASOS

One of the more famous British online cosmetics and fashion retailers, ASOS primarily focuses on young adults and their fashion needs. They sell over 850 brand products along with their own range of accessories and clothing.
ASOS has simulated augmented reality-based models on their website that allows customers with virtual try-on. This ‘try-before-you-buy’ allows a customer to try various products conveniently.

ASOS

…
Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
CEO: Nick Beighton
Founded: 3 June 2000, London, UK
Founders: Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan, Quentin Griffiths
Subsidiary: Miss Selfridge

9. Adidas

One of the world’s leading shoe manufacturers, Adidas is a German MNC that also designs clothing and other accessories.
With their new flagship store in London’s Oxford Street, Adidas has unveiled three AR experiences, AR-based games to be precise, that the users can play using the Instagram app.
By simply scanning the posters in-store, using the Instagram camera, a customer can witness an immersive experience and learn more about product innovations done by Adidas.

Adidas

…
Founder: Adolf Dassler
Founded: 8 August 1949, Germany
Headquarters: Herzogenaurach, Germany
CEO: Kasper Rørsted (1 Oct 2016–)
Subsidiaries: Reebok, Five Ten Footwear, Adidas (Thailand)

10. Anthropologie

With over 200 stores across the US and Canada, Anthropologie is an American clothing retailer that offers an assortment of clothing, jewelry, home furniture, decoration, beauty, and gifts.
With a wide variety of products to offer, Anthropologie has a very limited number of its furniture inventory on display. Their ‘preview in a room’ feature, allows a customer to explore the whole wide range of products available, and with Ar-visualisation, a customer can get a better idea as to how that particular item would look like in their environment, whether it fits or not and all such things, making the whole shopping experience highly satisfactory.

Anthropologie

…
Headquarters: Philadelphia, United States of America
Founder: Richard Hayne
Founded: 31 October 1992
CEO: Tricia D. Smith
Parent organization: Urban Outfitters

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