India is one of the leading countries when it comes to retail and online-based markets. Just behind the US, India is one of the fastest growing markets for internet-based online retail and marketing, and this industry is set to boom and expand further engulfing all smaller markets and physical stores.
The trend is transforming the way customers shop and experience products and services at physical stores across the globe. Especially given the pandemic scenario, the internet-based retail formats have completely taken over the physical stores.
Some brands have gone the extra mile and integrated new technologies such as virtual try on and augmented reality to further push and promote their brands and shopping experiences.
Brands such as Lenskart and Tanishq are leading the way in this regard where they have let customers try on their products virtually by integrating with third-party vendors to experience their catalogs and products and visually make product buying decisions.
Virtual Try-On and Augmented Reality
Virtual try-On and augmented Reality are two facets of the same coin. One uses a model of a customer and some virtual aspects from real-time such as images whereas the other uses real-time imaging techniques to emulate the real picture or video of the customer by using computer graphics and imaging techniques.
Virtual try-on is a more affordable platform and helps customers easily access millions of products by roughly experiencing the product on a model that is based on the customer’s model imaging. Augmented reality on the other hand uses graphics and motion pictures along with gestures and haptic input to create a model of the customer.
These two technologies are slowly taking over the physical and the online world of retail shopping and product experience centers by offering customers a whole new dimension of shopping. Many stores are also including virtual try-on apps and augmented reality kiosks to enable customers a peek into the future of online shopping.
They are, however, most applicable when used online on brand websites and products that need the customer to imagine how the product would look on them. This need to imagine has been essentially redefined with these two technologies.
Benefits of Virtual Try-On Apps
There are many brands and services that have slowly started to use the virtual try-on technology and integrated this technique either in their stores or in their websites. There are many benefits to this type of shopping experience and some of them have been listed below:
- Virtual try-on removes the inability to imagine certain products on the customer by providing them an easy way to try things on virtually
- It helps in exploring the entire range and catalog in the best and efficient manner
- It helps customers in viewing and accessing the full range of products from the comfort of their own home and on their screens
- It also integrates with other apps in the background so that customers can take snapshots, share images, get feedback from friends, etc.
- It helps retailers to display and use the full spectrum of their product range via the app, which sometimes is not possible in physical stores.
- It also helps the brand to enhance the shopping experience by recommending products going by the facial features or the shopping trend of the customer.
