The Introduction:

One of our client from retail industry has been serving the sector for more than 30 years. They have the experience and the expertise required to promote products and sell them to the customers. They have their physical store located in California. Also, the online store highlights all of the products available. Their business has only increased after the adoption of the online application.

Challenges

As stated above, the client is one of the leading companies in the retail industry, they have always in search of ways to improve their business operations. A couple of years ago, they took their offline business to the online store. Staying at the forefront of innovation, they never left a single opportunity to improve their services.

After studying their online to offline sales, they found that the number of returns was more as compared to the situation when products were bought online. Often, the reason would be improper size or the product doesn’t look good. Either be the case, the business was suffering and so the need to fill the gap. They thought of having a mechanism where they can offer their customers the ease to view products in real-time. Implementing this wasn’t easy and required expert support.

“Transforming business operations and on the global scale, we were curious about how would things work out, and if the desired solution was worth all of our efforts. Keeping aside all our speculations, we met the team at Stridely Solutions and since then, our perspective has changed. We are glad that we could connect with them. They have a team of skilled experts who have strong command over the technology and have been helpful throughout the course of project completion.”

The Solution

To help customers with a real-time view of the products, we had to develop an app with features and functionalities of augmented reality. An ideal solution here would look something like the IKEA app that manifests images of the furniture in real-time.

This works on the concept that the customer places the camera at the location, and upon detection of the surface, the customer can see the product right in front of them. This way they can decide better if they want to purchase the product or not.

This idea would work well with all of the goods offered by the retail industry. From virtually trying on clothing products to putting up glasses, an AR-specific retail app would strive to offer store-like experiences to the customer at the ease of their home.

Case Details

Reaching out to us for help, the company had high hopes. They showed us their entire plan and the idea of how can we start with the same. To say, they did their homework right. Even though they had everything chalked out nice and clean, our team did run a background check on the same. Based on this, we suggested a few modifications in the tech stack and the design of the application.

Also, they wanted to have the app that just displayed the image. We gave the idea to introduce 360° of the images along with the zoom in and out feature to make the experience more lively. After a few brainstorming sessions, we both agreed on the plan and signed the contract.

At first, we designed an MVP for the app. The aim here was to test the same before investing in the actual app. To our surprise, the first line of users that used the MVP was more than happy with the real-time experience offered by the same. The app was successful in detecting the right surface to place the furniture. Also, users could move the device through different places to find the best location for the furniture.

Though we found a few glitches, yet the app was successful and the idea good to proceed with. Receiving such feedback, we worked faster and harder, covering up for the issues. It took us some time but after the development phase, the app looked better than the MVP.

We run a series of tests to confirm the application performance and once everything looked fine, we shared the app with the client. The app was released to the market and our job done.

Benefits

In simple terms, an augmented reality app helps customers visualize their product in real-time. Meaning that even before making a purchase, they can view the products. This enhances the online buying experience of the customers, improving sales and profits.

• Customers find it interesting to try the products before hitting on the buy now button. This wins the trust of the customers leading to a flawless experience
• When customers are happy with a product, the number of visitors turning to customers increases
• Satisfied purchases account for minimal product returns
• Gamify shopping experience, increasing brand loyalty
• Helps stand out in the crowd of other retail companies

Key Statistics

As more and more organizations shift to the online platform, there occurs a sheer need for solutions that replace the in-store experience. With an AR app, one that manifests a virtual image of the product in real-time, the retail industry has experienced:

• 35% higher conversion rates
• 75% reduction in the return rate
• 100% improvement in customer satisfaction rate

Future Prospects

Retail accounts for one of the most promising industries in terms of gaining user traction and improving business productivity. What has been confined to four walls now finds a place in every house. This has been a huge shift but that’s not it. The industry has just started on the path of the digital revolution and there’s more to it than just the augmented reality. For starters, it could be the integration of payment through cryptocurrencies or Bitcoin. Even though not much can be said, it is believed that digitization would change the face of the industry in its entirety.