5 Reasons Why AR and VR Strategy is a Must for Your Business Augmented Reality is a technology that overlays digital objects and information over the physical world to provide an enhanced version of the real world

Online shopping is getting more convenient with virtual try-on apps. AR visualization tools are making stock analysis easy. Pokémon like games are entertaining people and taking them out of the game room. There are many examples of how Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are easing the way we are doing our business.

What are AR and VR?

Augmented Reality is a technology that overlays digital objects and information over the physical world to provide an enhanced version of the real world. Whereas, Virtual Reality creates a virtual surrounding. Both of the technologies somehow are related but different in various aspects. Both are based on spatial computing but provide a different experience to the users.

Their applications are enormous and they are offering a way to augment the real world digitally. Let's see why these two technologies are gaining popularity, why they are becoming a need of now and the future, and why every business must have an AR/VR strategy.

5 crucial reasons for this are:

1. Workforce Training Without Any Risk

AR transforms the face of industrial training and makes it more immersive, interesting, and safe. At the manufacturing floor, where risks are high and safety is the main concern; training of newcomers becomes quintessential. With AR and VR, they can be accurately trained and their performance analyzed within the simulated environment without high costs, damage to equipment and ultimately resulting in much fewer fatalities on the shop floor.

2. Enable us to Extract More From the Available Data

As soon as the age of big data started, companies started getting problems while handling such a huge accumulation. It became difficult to extract valuable insights from the 2-dimensional data that can render the 3-dimensional world. So, everyone was in need of something that can bridge this gap and can provide complete in-depth data exploitation.

Augmented reality is bringing the digital world into real-world and thus creating a bridge between the two worlds. These are letting people get more from the data.

For instance, a survey revealed that more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced on a daily basis. Harnessing and analyzing such an enormous amount of data for an actionable insight becomes far easier with AR that helps in the visualization of data.

3. Let Your Customers Feel Special

Consumers love to experience and explore something new and innovative. With Augmented Reality, every business can bring innovation and can rule over a major part of their consumer group. For example, when Snapchat introduced the AR filters which were new to people, it gained a huge surge in the number of users. Likewise, Pokémon game had 28.5 million users in its first month whereas its revenue was $100 million in 20 days only. A survey reveals that almost 50% of the customers prefer shopping at the retailers where they will get AR and VR experience.

4. Your Retail Shop Could Beat Online Shopping

Flipkart, Amazon, and Myntra like online shopping stores transformed the way people were doing shopping. It would not be wrong to say that it makes every retailer think about their services. People feel more convenient to shop on these platforms rather than visiting the stores. There are so many reasons such as they find online shopping more convenient, easy to explore all products, easy to engage with the products, etc. Tanishq is introducing a good example at some of its stores where consumers can select and try virtually any items without actually trying it with AR apps. This makes the consumer shopping experience easy, entertaining, and effortless.

AR and VR also help you in engaging your customers at your shops without any employees. They can browse a detail about a product in the store and learn more about it before purchasing. They can also get to know about other's opinion for a product and all with the simple scanning of QR code on an AR/VR app.

5. Appreciate Impulse Shopping and Thus Aiding Your Selling Rate

AR/VR provides an immersive experience to the consumers and sometimes it invokes people to buy something instantly even if they do not intend to buy that item. Technology affects the shopping habits of people and is thus driving more number of consumers. 72% of the people admit that they ended up buying a product just because of the unique experience they got.

These technologies attract people; help them to understand about any product, business, and services; let them explore more; let them interact more with the people and product, help in making a decision; and solve their doubts problems, and queries. All in all augmented reality and virtual reality are making an impact on how people see, think, and react.

As technologies are invading life at a greater pace, people must think about their usage and implementation. People who are already using it can go higher if they continue exploring their potential. Whosoever is not using it should start working on their strategy and must not avoid technologies that can be a game-changer.

The market is seeing new innovation, development and constant progress in technology; one must keep an eye here to watch, adopt, and grow with the right implementation of technologies at the right place.