Let us agree, our customers long for trying on products like watches, glasses, cosmetics, or even a new haircut or eyebrow shape while shopping for these items online. The fact which upsets your customers the most is the inability to become sure of the product that they are purchasing. It is due to the absence of a bridge between the online world and their offline world. The brand which can bridge the gap smartly ends up with happy customers and improved revenues simultaneously.
Virtual try-on technology can be the shopping guide that your customers need for all their e-commerce shopping needs. It helps to bridge the gap between offline and online shopping. Moreover, if the customers are presented with an authentic self of the product using this technology, then they are 3 times more likely to end up making an item purchase. The ability to be able to try and test the product online and being able to share it with the online community is a basic necessity for any brand.
The article provides a great insight into virtual try-on technology, its benefits, use cases, and how brands are benefitting immensely after adopting the technology.
What is Virtual Try-On Technology?
The virtual try-on technology helps you to take your trial room online by helping retailers to recreate the offline shopping experience. The customers can simply try on anything like clothes, glasses, furniture, make-up, etc using their cameras and augmented reality. It helps the customers to experience the product in reality, where they long for the “touch and feel”.
The concept, however, is not new to the e-commerce industry. The first e-commerce brand to make use of the technology was Converse, a footwear brand, in the year 2012. It was a very simple version of what we can find in a virtual try-on technology experience today.
Although virtual try-on technology has been around for quite some time now, it only started to gain popularity among popular brands recently. The main advantage to the brands adopting virtual try-on technology is the enormous reduction in the rate of returns – automatically inflating profits and hurting the bottom lines.
Benefits of Virtual Try-On Technology
- Boost Sales and Customer Loyalty : According to Statista, online shopping is one of the most popular activities that people pursue online. Thus, the ecommerce sales worldwide are projected to grow to 6.54 trillion by the year 2022. These stats are driving the brands to adopt better and attractive technology to keep the customers glued to the brand.
Many popular brands are adopting virtual try-on technology to engage the customers as well as gain a competitive advantage. These brands include Nyka, Snap, Sephora, Adidas among others. The brands can quickly take the offline store experience to their online websites and apps and entertain the customers equally well. Thus, ensuring a strong omnichannel presence.
The customers can willingly try on as many products as they like without feeling compelled to purchase any items and be anxious to lose money on a worthless product. Moreover, the customers can share their looks online, so they automatically become your brand ambassadors.
- Offer personalizations online
According to Forbes, around 40% of marketers believe that personalization can maximize sales and profits. Virtual try-on combined with 3D configurators makes it possible for brands to personalize the technology for their products and offer whatever the customers demand. - Encourage cross-sales
As virtual try-on can allow customers to try on multiple products at the same time, the technology opens up a new avenue for encouraging sales across a variety of products. - Reduction in the number of product returns
According to Appriss retail, total ecommerce returns account to 309 billion US dollars in lost sales for US retailers alone in 2019. Moreover, if we include other losses like shipping, warehousing, labour and those on the environment too, then the losses are unimaginable. Also, it is commonly seen that the customers overshop and then return the items which are not required. This behaviour can be controlled by the virtual try-on technology and can significantly help to avoid losses due to the returns.
Use Cases of Virtual Try-On Technology
Baume is a Swiss watch-making brand. It included a virtual try-on for watches. The technology allows the customers to customize watches online and try them on. This allows the customers to try on the watches and make any changes before they order the watches which they want. The technology is completely embedded in the website of the brand.
Conclusion
The virtual try-on technology is gradually working to make its way into the e-commerce world. It is becoming requisite in pushing the sales and customer loyalty of a brand. Virtual try-on, not only helps the brand build its customer loyalty and increase sales but also keeps the customers happy and losses at bay. The customer engagement has increased multifold and nothing can be better than being able to try and test the products before settling to buy the same.
We, at Queppelin, specialize in coming up with innovative virtual try-on solutions and catapulting them to the finish. Our virtual try-on technology experiences are unparalleled. We can come up with a highly customized solution for all our clients within an expected time and minimum budget.
