Augmented Reality and the Future of Furniture Business
Throughout the history of our market economy, the driving force behind any significant transformation of any given sector has been technological innovations. E-commerce is currently in the beginning phases of one such transformation. In this case, the driving force is Virtual Reality (AR).
According to leading IT experts, AR is going to be “the next big thing,” and it will revolutionize the way consumers interact with businesses, bringing shoppers and products closer together than ever before. The furniture industry, in particular, is witnessing the astonishing benefits of AR, and after piloting our AR services with some of our more ambitious clients, we here at Jola are positive that AR is not only the future of the furniture industry, it’s here now for all to embrace and benefit from. Not convinced? Keep on reading and we’ll tell you why!
The Current Dilemma
When the internet was still in its early phases, digital mediums such as music, movies, and books took up most of the limelight on the growing platform of goods available for purchase online. Without the need to feel or touch these virtual items, users were happy to pay for these various downloadable products. Eventually, as internet capabilities continued to improve, most other consumer goods found their way to accessibility on e-commerce websites as well. The furniture industry, however, seems to be lagging behind. So why hasn’t the online furniture business soared at the same heights as virtually everything else? One explanation may be that standard furniture e-commerce platforms while giving customers the opportunity to examine the normative aspects of the furniture pieces, lack of proximity to consumers prevents sellers from ensuring accurate translation of product features, inspiring marketable storytelling, and sufficient customer interaction. These substantial hindrances prevent the furniture industry from taking off online, a pressing dilemma that AR is in the process of eliminating.
AR and Its Application in the Furniture Industry Today
With the help of AR’s revolutionary technology, users will not only be able to inspect your furniture from every angle, but they will also have the power to see how your furniture can fit into their homes and offices. Currently, industry-leading AR applications are being used by the paint industry to help customers visualize the improvements that can be made with certain paint jobs, among other things. Those same apps can be utilized to give your shoppers the unique opportunity of virtually placing furniture items into their living rooms in order to fully conceptualize how your products can fit into their interior design. AR is the only way for furniture shoppers to take into account the interplay of design, functionality, and size with their current home/office setup when choosing which furniture to buy.
Augmented Reality Benefits for Your Furniture Business
1: Minimize translation errors
It can be quite disappointing for a buyer to open a furniture delivery to find that it is nothing like its representation online–a potential detrimental error for a furniture business that can lead to loss of reputation and sales. With the help of AR, both buyers and sellers can minimize the effect of such translation errors. By implementing AR into your digital storefront, customers are able to see how your furniture fits into their home/office space. This visualization allows the buyer to interact with the furniture, thus nullifying the probability of translation errors.
2: A completely new way of showcasing a wide range of furniture products
If you are able to use AR for your furniture business in an effective way, then you will be able to provide a highly memorable shopping experience to your customers. No need to stay limited to 2D images or dependent on lengthy catalogs. AR allows your customers a first-person experience of the variety of your portfolio in its entirety, even from their smartphones. The monetary and logistical hassles of making your warehouse presentable for new clients will be worries of the past. Just give them the virtual tour—with AR, it couldn’t be easier.
Through AR, you can showcase your furniture in a space where millions of customers can admire and interact with your product. AR provides a truly unique experience to everyone who uses your platform; and if more people become engaged with your product, then your sales figures have nowhere to go but up.
3: Build a strong connection with clients
AR provides an incomparable shopping experience to your customers where they can explore every feature and inspect each detail of your products. Through AR,, the customer can easily assess which items fit like a glove into the context of their homes/offices and which ones look odd. We can say with confidence that AR provides shoppers with the most personal shopping experience—arguably exceeding even in-person shopping—to help them find the best product available on the market.
AR is the future of online furniture shopping. The experience of seeing how certain products look in certain settings from the comfort of one’s home is a difference of night and day compared to conventional e-commerce—even compared to conventional showrooms for that matter. In order to stay relevant as an e-commerce based business in the furniture industry, AR is an absolute necessity.
Are you as excited about AR as we are? Contact Jola Interactive for more information on how our AR services can add value to your online furniture business.
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