How AR technology is enhancing consumer buying experience in pandemic times

Adloid, a pioneer in 3D visualisation and Augmented Reality technology, is using its proprietary 2D to 3D offerings and is enabling large enterprises to create virtual shopping experiences for their customers. The company has been in the Augmented Reality space since 2017. With world-class products on offer and leading in terms of the features supported, the company believes that its rate of customer retention is considerably high as the team constantly innovates. Innovation has been enabling the company to meet the needs of enterprise customers across multiple sectors without compromising on any features of the AR experience. There are also mechanisms built to make AR mainstream for the customers.

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In conversation with Adgully, Kanav Singla, Founder & CEO, Adloid, speaks about how AR technology is enhancing consumer buying experience, as well as reducing return rates on e-commerce platforms, and much more.

What is the USP of Adloid as compared to other players in the AR industry?

The competitive landscape for AR industry is in its early days, with a few players catering to industry specific use-cases, a few working on specific parts of the value chain and not catering to the whole workflow, where the majority are taking the project/ service approach to their offerings and hence, also limiting their scope for scale. 

Adloid, with its web-based proprietary platform, is solving for the complete workflow, tackling the problems of scale, rendering quality on web and mobile, and compatibility in smartphones as its USP.

How does AR technology enhance the consumer buying experience?

The world is going virtual, and powering immersive experiences is the key. Adloid’s AR platform allows businesses to actively engage their customers and go beyond the limitations of their physical reality to let customers experience products as they would in a real setup when the estimation is that 100 million+ users would be shopping in AR by 2022 (Source: Gartner).

A virtual world needs smartphones for scale and democratisation, and AR is the answer. We’re removing bulky hardware and clunky software from augmented reality, making it adaptable to various use-cases and accessible to all using the capabilities of smartphones at scale. Our solution has the potential to reach 2.9 billion+ smartphones globally today (AR Global Revenue Forecast, 2018-2023) and counting.

For example, we allow consumers to experience a car virtually from the safety and comfort of home by having a walk around the showroom, configure and play around their choice of car, and augment a life size model of it in their own environment using their smartphone. 

Which all sectors does Adloid cater to? Who are your target audience?

Adloid is sector agnostic in its approach of empowering brands and enterprises to offer intuitive and immersive experiences to their audience. Today, our platform caters to automotive, home-decor, and lifestyle/ fashion industries. As we speak, we’re also witnessing adoption in use cases of academic and industrial training, consumer electronics/ durables. Our customer segment includes enterprises who are in the mid-to-advanced stage of their digital transformation journey and for whom our offerings can provide a significant increase in brand engagement and conversion.

How does mobile AR work? Could you explain the core components that make it work?

The core components of any AR-based tool are the hardware, software, and the servers. The hardware includes processor, sensors, input devices, and mainly the display, which is largely the smartphones that we use, while the input devices in this case are the mobile cameras. Sensors, on the other hand, could include an accelerometer and gyroscope. In addition, the software and the cloud servers/ dedicated hosting platform is required to render and store the data. All three come together to create an AR experience.

How is AR helping brands in driving sales during COVID-19 times?

AR assists the consumers in learning about the features and having an immersive experience during the exploration/ purchase journey for increased user engagement and enhanced decision making. This, in turn, helps brands drive sales up during COVID-19, when the physical contact points are limited and customers are in need of alternative ways of engaging with the brands. 

An example of this playing out in reality is the virtual try-on of spectacles or makeup before purchase, likewise with automobiles and home decor items, which require extensive consideration and testing before buying out.

According to a report, the use of AR by e-commerce platforms has minimised product return rates. How does Augmented Reality reduce return rates?

The cause behind product returns is largely a misfit of the size and differences in other elements like colour, quality, and the broader appearance. Since AR helps solve the problem of trying out the product before purchasing and the real time, immersive experience allows the customer to get a comprehensive look and feel of the product, naturally the chances of returning a product goes down drastically.