JD.com, one of China’s largest e-commerce companies, announced the new Augmented Reality (AR) Innovation Alliance (article in Chinese) and brought three new AR products to market. The alliance brings together hundreds of corporations, including Intel, Wal-Mart, Vipshop, Lenovo, and Carslan. Both Wal-Mart and Carslan both committed to bringing JD’s new AR products to their stores.
The three products that JD announced this week are as follows:
- AR Dressing Mirror: Using 3D scanning and artificial intelligence, consumers’ height, chest, waist, hip, etc. measurements are taken in five seconds. JD’s system then quickly builds a personalized 3D image of the customer that allows the customer to virtually try on new clothes.
- AR Makeup Mirror: Using similar technology as the AR Dressing Mirror, customers can virtually try on many different cosmetic products, share their virtual image with the new makeup on social media and ask feedback from their friends.
- AR Smart Glasses: These are the least interesting as they are very similar to older AR technology like Google Glass, but JD still announced them as a way to fill in the gaps for less specific shopping use cases. These glasses will use the same technology as the previous products (Artificial Intelligence, AR, 3D mapping, etc.)
JD.com can now connect their database of customers to the brick and mortar retailers that deploy their AR technologies. This seamless connection between the offline and online retail worlds allows for both groups to make a better decision about what products they develop and where they should invest in new offline retail locations.
JD.com has been able to show that by combining these AR experiences with their artificial intelligence engines that they have increased online orders by 9.6% and decreased customer return rates by 7.5% . If these numbers are remotely correct, this technology will have every retailer on Earth scrambling to catch up.
All three of these technologies have been used in various forms in different industries, but this implementation is the first adoption of this scale at one of the largest retailers in the world. This application is just the “tip of the iceburg” for the use cases for both brick and mortar and online retailers. Which AR application are you most excited to try – are there any you wish existed? Chances are it’s out there, it just isn’t mainstream, yet. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
