How Is Augmented Reality Changing The Global Perception?

Augmented reality (AR) has made up the leeway from being just a pie-in-the-sky idea to being imbibed by prominent retail brands, both in-store and in the eCommerce space. During the nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, retailers and ingenious brands are looking forward to adopting innovative digital methods, for instance, a contactless medium of selling and mesmeric product experience to prompt customer engagement, increase their revenue share, and improve brand awareness along with loyalty. 

The augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) market is expected to broadly expand in the upcoming years. With such tremendous potential, retail businesses must foresee getting habituated to these business-empowering technologies to enhance their financial prospects. 

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that integrates the real world with the virtual world through smartphones or tablets. In this way, the virtual and real world get merged on the screens of our devices.

This digital transformation is now making a gigantic move by the efforts of the team at ADLOID with a great visionary - Kanav Singla - Founder, ADLOID, leading it. I got in touch with Mr Singla and learned about how ADLOID is bringing about the required innovation and transformation. 

“Future of retail is immersive - this statement resonated amongst the founding team of ADLOID, and they started the journey of creating a riveting platform for retailers and enterprises,” explains Kanav on what prompted him to start the company.

Kanav Singla, Founder, is an IIT Delhi graduate. He got exposed to various aspects of technology and their impact during his days there. Further, he studied the shift in retail from offline to online in 2016-17, but saw major gaps in the product and customer experience on all major platforms.

“Retail needs evolve daily. They are now looking at decreasing returns, optimizing real estate and inventory costs, and improving the customer experience on all fronts,” clarifies Kanav. “The reliance on digital inventory is increasing and today there are millions of products being digitized and sold in Augmented Reality globally, expecting the number to rise this year.” 

So, how big a role does ADLOID play in the current scenario? “Well, ADLOID serves as a full stack AR platform for brands and enterprises. And, using it, any retailer can digitize their product and service catalogue to 3D to further showcase to the end customers the power of Augmented Reality,” claims Mr Singla.

Augmented Reality has the power to replace physical inventory. You simply require a smartphone to experience it. No more additions required. “For instance, a furniture retailer or a car dealer can use ADLOID to create live product demos for its shoppers. Or an online fashion or beauty brand could use it to help the customer try on a shirt or a lipstick as if it was an in-store, in-person trial,” he elaborates further.

While we all consider AR technology to be a recent revolution, it has actually existed for seven years at least. Kanav explains the reason behind, “But, it was not easy to implement and took months to deploy. We can now make brands AR ready in a matter of days, and the AR tech understands and interprets surroundings in a way humans do.” It is this full stack offering that eliminates the need for big virtual showrooms or huge TV screens installed at brick-and-mortar outlets.

Similarly, a car dealer can augment a product trial for the customer with a few taps on the iPad. He can show all variants and components of a car without having to stock everything. “He doesn’t even need the space to set up a showroom. His infrastructure cost is zero. That is the disruptive power of AR, it will eventually eliminate the need for physical car dealerships,” says Prashant, Co Founder – ADLOID. 

Currently, ADLOID is creating digital stores and inventories for the big brands like Asian Paints, Tata Motors, Titan, Tanishq, Mercedes, Orient to name a few. The organization is working on creating a platform which covers the entire retail bed, including fashion and lifestyle retail. For the same reason it has partnered with retail giants like SAP. It has become a part of SAP startup studio, a partnership that enables ADLOID to create an impact globally for retailers.  

“ADLOID has successfully digitized 10K+ products so far, and is delivering 10K+ unique experiences everyday, helping the end customers make better purchase decisions, just by using their smartphones,” says Shorya, Co Founder – ADLOID. 

ADLOID has been client-funded in the past two years, working with a laser focus on customer acquisition and productization. Going forward, the company plans to work with 100+ retailers this financial year, targeting an AR revenue of $2M USD.