Amazon to drive adoption of AR technology

Amazon has launched AR View, an augmented reality feature for its mobile app. This gives customers a 3D rendering of how a product will look in their home or workspace. It is activated by clicking on the camera icon in the app and selecting from products across such categories as furniture, kitchen ware and home decor.

According to Natalie Berg, Retail Insights Director at Planet Retail, this is significant as it indicates that Amazon is getting more serious about furniture and homewares and, for the broader industry, AR View has the potential to take augmented reality from gimmick to game-changer. “While they’re certainly not the first retailer to offer AR in their mobile app, Amazon’s reach will help to drive adoption of AR technology. Just like Alexa and Dash buttons, if anyone can transform the way we shop, it’s Amazon,” she says in a LinkedIn post.

Berg notes that, while we’ve all been preoccupied with Whole Foods and the like, Amazon has made some significant inroads into the home category by building warehouses dedicated to oversized shipping, introducing new pricing standards for marketplace furniture sellers and launching Amazon Home. According to One Click Retail, furniture is now one of the e-commerce giant's fastest-growing categories with sales in excess of $2 billion.

“What good is augmented reality without the product?” she adds. “The same can be said for Amazon’s Prime Now service: what good is one-hour delivery without a compelling range of stuff? Hence the Whole Foods deal plus a growing number of global supply agreements with Sprouts, Morrisons, Booths, Feneberg, Rossmann, Dia, the list goes on. Luckily for Amazon, the largest furniture retailer in the world is ready to start selling on third party sites. An Amazon-IKEA tie-up seems incredibly likely at this stage.”