AR And VR Can Shake Up Customer Experience By Individualizing Retailers’ Offers: Gartner

Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have the potential to shake up the customer experience by individualizing retailers’ offers and enabling customers to visualize products in different settings. By 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in AR online and in-store, according to Gartner, Inc.“Retailers are under increasing pressure to explain the purpose of physical stores, and take control of the fulfillment and return process for cross-channel execution,” said Hanna Karki, principal research analyst at Gartner. “At the same time, consumers are progressively defining the value provided by the experiences they receive from retailers. As a result of these pressures, retailers are turning to AR and VR to offer customers a unified retail experience inside and outside retail stores.”A 2018 Gartner survey indicated that, by 2020, 46 percent of retailers planned to deploy either AR or VR solutions to meet customer service experience requirements. Additionally, the technologies behind these solutions have moved 15 to 30 percent further along the Gartner Hype Cycle over the past 12 months.“The impact of AR or VR in retail can be transformative,” said Karki. “Retailers can use AR as an extension of the brand experience to engage customers in immersive environments and drive revenue. For example, IKEA’s Place app enables customers to virtually ‘place’ IKEA products in their space. Additionally, AR can be used outside the store after a sale to increase customer satisfaction and improve loyalty.”