Enhanced in-store shopping experience through smart phone based mixed reality application

Abstract

A prime concern in today's commerce offering is having satisfied customers through a range of business and technical solutions. Businesses invest and explore different approaches in their merchandising and product promotion to revolutionize in-store shopping experiences. With the advent of Mixed Reality (MR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) as consumer level technologies, it has now become possible to look at how shopping experience of customers can be enhanced from a fresh perspective. This paper presents Smart Phone based Mixed Reality Application (SPMRA), which makes it possible to gamify the whole in-store shopping experience with a low cost, easy to use, smart phone based mixed reality platform. This interactive, fun to use platform enables retail owners to create mixed reality based experiences with few clicks and customers to receive unique shopping experience during their stay in-store. Usage of the SPMRA in real world environments has been tested in Media-Markt outlets in Munich, Germany and Singer Mega show rooms in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka resulting in positive customer feedback and better overall shopping experience for customers. A significant 82.1% of SPMRA users in Germany and Sri Lanka agreed to the fact that the application assisted and influenced them in making their buying decisions.