Argos Augmented Reality Powered Shopping App
Argos
Harnessing the power of AR to reduce returns and sell more
As a household name in the UK, Argos has excelled in transforming itself from a traditional catalogue business to become one of the UK’s leading multichannel retailers in order to meet customers’ digital demands.
For a business that sells everything from pens and paper, through to large-ticket items such as furniture and white goods, Argos faces many challenges as they commit to using digital technology to give customers exactly what they want – a more relevant, and convenient way to buy everyday products.
Solving e-commerce’s biggest challenges with augmented reality
With the evolution of augmented reality technology and, in particular, the launch of Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore, Argos were able to tap into the power of AR to help solve some of the biggest pain points their customers face when shopping for furniture – what will this product look like in my home, which colour looks best, and does it actually physically fit in my room?
Answering these key questions enables Argos to not only help their customers through the purchase journey but, crucially, also helps them reduce the cost to the business of handling returns on large, costly items when a customer realises that the product isn’t quite what they expected.
Augmented reality product visualisation – more inspiration, less irritation
Working closely with the development team at Argos, our team of augmented reality experts helped to turn concept into reality by integrating an AR viewing mode into the existing Argos app, letting customers visualise and interact with a range of furniture products in their own homes.
Once the augmented furniture has been placed in the real world environment, customers can easily reposition it to find the best placement, and they can even adjust the colour and fabric to make sure they have the perfect match to suit their personal tastes.
Augmented reality and the future of e-commerce
Since its release, the ‘View in AR’ feature in the Argos app has expanded to include a range of products that go beyond furniture, with televisions and even Lego sets now all viewable as augmented products.
With augmented reality, the future of e-commerce is one where we move beyond the web page and the mobile app, and into a world where digital and physical merge. With augmented reality shoppers now have the ability to place a range of augmented products in their own home and get an even more realistic sense of the product they’re looking to purchase, and Argos are leading thew way.
Developed using Apple’s ARKit, the Argos augmented reality powered shopping app is now available on all compatible iOS devices.
