Augmented reality and ecommerce

My version of augmented reality used to go something like this, sci-fi people wearing glasses or headgears, engrossed in their own world, making changes with hand gestures. Pokemon Go changed a little of my perception, Simplified AR for me and how easily it can fit in our daily life through our smartphones.

Then I recently read about how AR could be the next big thing for ecommerce, where you can try out clothes and accessories through your smartphones and laptops. There’s so much more when virtual reality and augmented reality can create theme based shopping. Wanna know your opinions on how you think UX will play a major role in this augmented future of ecommerce.

Love this topic! Ping @rachelreveley

I’ve never played Pokemon Go, but I do know that the only sites I buy from are the ones that let you return things free (and hassle free) for a full refund. Being able to really see how something looks and fits would be a life changer for me.

I hadn’t really thought about AR Ecommerce but just imagine visiting IKEA, picking a product and IKEA placing it over your phone’s view of the room you want to put it in? Accurate sizing could be difficult but all of their imagery is already CGI.

White balance could be adjusted for automatically, perspective calculated from edges of the room etc. I think you would need to allow manual overides so that the shopper can fix problems due to the software not calculating what is going on in the view but it could be very cool. This would require a lot more AI than I think is currently used in a lot of these applications of AR.

I don’t think I would trust it for fashion, I reject a lot of clothes due to poor quality/thin fabric or because I’m curvy and even the right sized clothing often isn’t the right shape. Clothes shopping is a very tactile experience. I think it could work for generic T-Shirt places like Spreadshirt though.

The closest thing I have seen is ASOS’s catwalk videos, do they still do those?

It’s already in practice by a few online stores like London based Banana Flame boutique and particularly popular among online jewelry stores. This is the article I was talking about which has quite a few examples of Augmented reality in ecommerce. Augmented Reality, a Conversion Booster for eCommerce

I do agree with Rachel that for some people it’s really needed to feel the fabric before making a purchase, but for me, I am so used to of ordering my clothes from ecommerce websites that I would love to jump at the idea of how the shirts will look on me, whether the color will go well with my tanned skin tone. If implemented well, this idea I feel could be radical for ecommerce.