Retail is in decline.
Over the last two decades, eCommerce has rapidly encroached on physical retail. The convenience of online shopping, and its accelerating delivery speeds, have resulted in dramatic changes in consumer spending, habits and expectations.
As fulfillment time approaches zero, physical retail is losing its edge, and its customers, to the powerful recommendations and personalization of eCommerce.
The power of Discovery, Search, and Personalization has created an almost unbeatable combination. But we'll explore how the latest advances in augmented reality are bringing these powerful features to physical retail.
Discovery.
One of the most powerful features of online shopping is the ease of discovery. While physical retailers try to organize their locations so that shoppers are exposed to the right products at eye level, online shopping allows for these products to be surfaced at the right time and place.
The result is larger baskets, higher conversion rates, and the habituation of the effortless joy of online discovery.
Search.
Shoppers looking for specific items face friction when they cannot easily find what they're looking for.
Finding what they're looking for is becoming increasingly easy online, so how can physical retailers compete?
While helpful staff are a great aid, giving personal attention to each shopper is unrealistic when margins are razor thin.
Personalization.
Every visitor to a physical retailer is faced with the same offers, bargains and ads as each other, regardless of intent, demographic or purchase history.
Promotions in physical retail compete with the actual products for eye-level real estate, making the art of merchandising a perpetually painful exercise in compromise.
Augmented reality has now reached a maturity where each shopper can experience the same physical location in a way that is unique to them.
The birth of
convergent commerce
New advances in augmented reality make it possible to bring the power of discovery, search and personalization to physical retail, without sacrificing what makes retail great.
Shoppers can find what they're looking for faster, get helpful recommendations when they are the most likely to act, and automatically find the best products at eye-level every time.
EXAMPLE (click to play)
Would you rather get lost at the mall, or lost in the moment?
Mall
EXAMPLE (click to play)
Augmented reality makes it possible to give personalized recommendations.
Supermarket
EXAMPLE (click to play)
Augmented reality is enabling convergent commerce, where digital and physical merge.
Furniture store
The best of both worlds
Augmented reality and the posemesh allow physical commerce to inherit the best things about eCommerce, improving the customer experience massively while creating new revenue opportunities for the retail location.
Imagine the unparalleled experience of physical commerce, but with the convenience and conversion rates of eCommerce style discovery, search, and personalization.
Posemesh technology makes it possible to create highly engaging, personalized and social shopping experiences in physical locations in a way that was considered science fiction just a year ago.
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ABOUT AUKI LABS
Auki Labs is creating the posemesh, a decentralized protocol for collaborative spatial computing.
Our decentralized peer-to-peer positioning system will give every cubic millimeter an address, replace the GPS system, and enable a persistent and privacy-preserving metaverse.
We are on a mission to help every person and device find their place in the world. Literally.