For yet another year, Catchoom was among the industry leaders invited to take the stage at Augmented World Expo in the heart of Silicon Valley, to share some of the hottest tech trends that will shape how people shop, play and interact over the next few years.  

One of most important areas where technology like Augmented Reality (AR) or Artificial Intelligence (AI) can create the most business value is the Retail & eCommerce sector.

In the past few years, retail has been heavily disrupted by the integration of information technologies. Yet, a report by the World Economic Forum and Accenture predicts that the retail landscape is going to change more in the next 10 years than it has done in the past 40 years.

Consumer needs are evolving, with a growing demand for meaningful experiences and easily accessible, transparent information about price and quality anywhere, anytime.

Retail experiences are going through a revival as both brick-and-mortar stores and eCommerce sites adopt advanced tech that is responding to these needs and transform the customer journey.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) have been gaining traction in the retail landscape, increasingly attracting marketing spend. According to Digi-Capital, by 2021 the AR and VR market will reach $108 billion in revenue, bringing in $83 billion and $25 billion respectively. Within that market, as IDC predicts it, retail will become the No. 1 industry for AR/VR spending.

They are both two points of the same spectrum and aim to add similar value in retail, providing personalized and engaging experiences. While AR consists in overlaying digital content upon the real world, enriching it with interactivity, VR immerses users into an alternate reality, completely disconnected from the actual world.

As customers become technologically savvy and start expecting more from brands and retailers, these need to step up in order to meet their needs. This involves embracing shifting consumer trends and keeping up with the latest tech. Whether in-store, online or omnichannel, visual shopping can help retailers make shopping experiences smooth, personal and engaging.

Our new whitepaper ‘Visual Shopping Solutions for Retailers’ goes through the main challenges the retail industry is facing in 2017, providing solutions that employ Image Recognition, Augmented Reality and Fashion-specific Artificial Intelligence.

As more and more customers are choosing online shopping over shopping in-store, brands need to figure out a way to add something unique to their offline purchasing experience.

Consider the reasons why a customer chooses to shop in-store over online. It’s likely that the in-store experience already offers something that online doesn’t. Perhaps it’s an offer specific to that store, or the customer service provided is worth the extra effort to travel. About 90% of all retail revenue in 2016 accounted for brick and mortar retail, so in-store shopping isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

In a previous post, we talked about how to combat “showrooming” ‒ a consumer trend that 46% of shoppers engage in and means  researching products in-store and buying them online. “Webrooming”, however, has become much more common  over the past few years, with 69% of shoppers taking part in it. Also known as ‘reverse showrooming’, it refers to the process of starting to browse  products online, but eventually completing the purchase in-store.

Easter is almost here, and everyone loves Easter Egg Hunts! This year, however, you can make it even better. We’re talking about a virtual egg hunt!

After the success of Pokemon Go!, virtual scavenger hunts have been taking off around the world. For this piece, we decided to collect the best Augmented Reality “egg hunts” and then give a few tips on how to make your own with CraftAR.

Showrooming and webrooming are both big consumer trends that are changing the retail landscape, as alternative channels of purchase proliferate. The first one refers to checking out a product in-store and then buying it online, such as on eCommerce sites like Amazon, for a better price. The latter is the opposite; it’s about researching products online and then heading to a store to complete the purchase.

According to a Harris poll, 46% engage in showrooming. That means that almost half of in-store visitors leave the premises without buying on the spot. That is a huge revenue loss for both online and offline retail sectors.

Product scanner apps have played a major role in m-commerce during the last few years. They allow users to engage and interact with products, catalogs, print ads or in-store signage seamlessly, providing them with valuable content and experiences in milliseconds, with no need for QR codes or special print markers.

Our team —and 100,000 fellow visitors— are slowly returning to reality after a crazy week spent at the world's largest mobile-themed "amusement park" that is Mobile World Congress. And even if MWC still resembles a tech Disneyland, this year, it was not only about taking the latest Virtual Reality devices for a spin.

Besides entertaining the masses, companies started to focus on how to create useful, profitable use cases around emerging tech such as AI or Augmented Reality, to make people's lives better and drive business.