Why You Need AR in your Home Commerce Business
During COVID-19, the world realized that the home has never been more critical, and businesses selling home items experienced record years. Coincidentally with many people stuck inside their homes, shifts were happening in the buying process. While customers could visit showrooms or allow in-person consultations in the past, this is no longer the case. Instead, both brands and customers depend on digital alternatives to make purchase decisions.
How can brands who sell home decor products, especially ones with a high ticket, close sales for customers while remote?
Even more importantly, how can brands provide confidence to their customers when making purchase decisions?
The answer lies in augmented reality.
My personal experience with augmented reality.
If you’ve been keeping up with my personal Instagram account journey, @colleen.tatum, you may have noticed that my husband and I recently moved to Ventura, CA. It was yet another unexpected change for us in 2020, but I couldn’t be more excited. We first lived when we got married, and I’m looking forward to all the fun adventures together in our new town.
A snapshot of our AR image from the night we moved in.
As we’ve been making our house a home, we had the infamous conversation of “Do we put a TV or piece of artwork above the fireplace?” Thanks to all the curated pins on Pinterest, I discovered a beautiful compromise - the Samsung Frame TV. It’s a flat-screen TV with a picture frame edge, and when it’s turned off, it transforms into an artwork that you can switch around.
As we started to talk through our purchase decision, I was convinced a 32” would be sufficient and almost placed the order until I clicked the button “View In Your Space.”
Thanks to the augmented reality, I found it was TOO tiny for the room. We played around with all sizes and eventually found the 43” to be a perfect size.
What is Augmented Reality?
In simple terms, Augmented Reality is a digital rendering of what something could be. While this technology has mostly been used in video games, it’s gaining popularity in healthcare, retail, and manufacturing. And in a year like 2020, businesses centered around the home are also adopting the technology.
Better Serve Your Customers
We live in an era with many unknowns, but one thing will always remain constant to be successful - excellent customer service. Customer service begins the moment anyone engages with your brand and continues for years to come. To increase your customer satisfaction, make sure you provide the tools to answer questions before they even ask.
Will this work in my space?
How can I pair this object with another?
What is the actual size?
While you can answer these questions in your product descriptions, videos, and other tools, it’s always good to provide answers in multiple forms and platforms. This helps meet a variety of customers of where they are at and cut back on customer exchanges.
With augmented reality, brands can provide enhanced customer confidence in the buying process.
“Retailers that offer AR can access customers from all over the world, cut down on the number of returned items, and improve customer satisfaction scores.”
2 AR Tools for your Small Business
While large companies like Ikea, Lowe’s, and Walmart have adopted augmented reality (AR) into their commerce and apps, how can smaller businesses bring in the AR technology to reach their customers?
If you are contemplating incorporating augmented reality (AR) for your home decor brand, here are two tools you can quickly adopt.
Please note, I have not yet directly worked with these technologies. If you have tested these options or know better alternatives, please let me know in the comments below.
For Social - Spark AR
Facebook recently launched a free online tool called Spark AR. You can share this software directly on your Instagram account, no coding work is required, and it appears to be very user friendly. You can also use Spark to create a filter on your Instagram stories to spread brand awareness. To learn how you implement Spark AR for your brand, check out this blog from Hootsuite.
For Web - AR Quick Look
If your brand is on Shopify, there is an app for AR called AR Quick Look, and it allows merchants to create 3D models of their products. Brands using the new feature have already noticed their conversion rates increasing +250%.
Final Thoughts
By offering the technology or content that guides customers throughout the purchase journey, you are able to create a foundation that serves your customer and brand long-term. If you are interested in implementing more content that can help guide your customers, then schedule a free discovery call today.
