Amazon is without a doubt the largest e-commerce website, where you can find any product you may need, from music to building materials. Since November 2017, iPhone owners could use the augmented reality feature to test how products would look in their house or on their bodies before making a purchase. Starting last week, Android phone owners can also enjoy the benefits of Amazon’s augmented reality shopping app.
Try Before You Buy: The Core Benefit of an Augmented Reality Shopping App
There is so much thought and so many emotions involved in shopping. In the past, shoppers went into stores, looked at products, touched them, and, as applicable, tried them on. Online shopping made the process simpler and less time consuming, but it removed the possibility of judging the quality and features of a product before buying it.
It was quite surprising to see Amazon lagging behind in the race to create an augmented reality shopping app for its customers, once the technology was available. It turns out they really wanted to do it in grand fashion. While other similar shopping apps allow customers to try on quite a restricted selection of products in augmented reality view, Amazon has included tens of thousands of items in its augmented reality shopping app. These products range from furniture and home décor to office equipment, games and toys.
The company created a short tutorial video, showing potential customers how to use the new app:
Why The Delay Between the iOS and Android App Launches?
Amazon launched its Android augmented reality app only after Google launched its ARCore Android framework. This means that only people with ARCore compatible Android phones are now able to use the new Amazon app. However, Google is in the process of extending ARCore support to a large number of devices, and soon enough the augmented reality shopping app will be supported by a significant percentage of Android phones currently in use.
Analysts specialized in the consumer goods field believe that Amazon’s decision to make their augmented reality shopping app available for Android phone owners is a move towards increasing its sales tremendously.
Amazon will most probably continue to add more products to its augmented reality shopping app: one of the most important things being clothing. The ability to try on a shirt or a pair of pants makes all the difference in the buying decision. Customers no longer have to worry whether the product actually fits them or flatters their figure.
At present, the Amazon’s AR view is only available for US based customers. The updated app will probably roll out on the Google Play Store for other countries in the near future.
