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.
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.
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.
Millennials are one of the largest demographic segments of our planet. In the US alone, they account for almost 80 million citizens and they spend an average of $600 billion per year. They are the first truly digital generation and differ greatly from the average consumer.
They respond differently to marketing and mistrust traditional advertising. Companies must, therefore, address this change in values and shopping habits if they want to reach out to these young, digitally native consumers.
Mobile is already influencing almost 1/3 of all in-stores sales made.
Why? Because these people want to make faster and smarter decisions when shopping. Augmented Reality and Image Recognition technology can be used in retailers' mobile apps to cater to these needs.
Whether talking about projects in marketing, education, publishing, or in the leisure industry, it is clear that print collaterals need to be reinvented, as digital alternatives have become a threat in the new media landscape.
Ebooks, online newspapers, video games and new technological advancements are replacing traditional physical books, magazines and board games. But digital is not print's enemy. In fact, we believe that combining print with digital platforms is the future.
Our new whitepaper, “A Guide to Interactive Print Experiences” will show you some great examples of how companies and agencies can connect physical paper touchpoints to interactive digital experiences.
Do you operate as an agency, developing marketing campaigns, digital assets or mobile apps for your clients? Do you sometimes worry about depending too much on one-off projects, or wonder how to win and keep more clients?
If that’s the case, our whitepaper, ‘How to Start a Successful Agency Service with Augmented Reality’’ is for you!
This guide will provide you with the best tips on how to make more profit and scale across clients, showing you top examples and practices that other companies have implemented to create successful services.