Traditional Way of Shopping Versus Online Shopping: Comparative Essay

‘Touch has a memory.’

In today’s competitive environment, every business should and must exploit every sensory system of a customer in order to create an impact about their product and service. ‘Touch’ is one of the most important sensory systems that can be used to create positive perception of the product in the mind of a customer.

Online shopping is increasing exponentially but still around 55% of the customer opt to visit a retail store before buying the product online. This clearly suggests that people around the globe are still into the traditional way of shopping. Age is also a factor here as older people are more likely to visit a store to first get a feel of the product before buying it online. Since many shoppers are now choosing to visit a store to check the product or touch the product before buying it online, it is very important for the retailers these days to maintain their retail shop as a showroom which gives a better experience or memory to the customers whilst feeling the texture, temperature, hardness, etc of the product.

This brings us to the point that e-commerce is lacking in this field as the majority of customers are willing to first feel or see the product before buying it online. Thus e-commerce around the world should change or adapt to new technology to improve customer satisfaction. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) is the next step to move forward for e-commerce. AR technology helps create a complete virtual world which is superimposed by computers in the real scene. They are of two categories –

Non-geometric and Completely virtual geometric. In non-geometric, information is superimposed on the real objects, for example – as projected in Asian Paints ad campaign of ‘Reimagine your Home’, one can click a photo of the wall and then superimpose the colour they want to choose on that wall to get a better idea of colour combination they want in their home through an app of Asian paints.

In completely virtual geometric, the video or images are completely virtual, that is 3D objects, scenes and so on.

Augmented reality can help marketers to use this technology and provide an immersive experience to the shoppers. AR in collaboration with Tactile feedback can do wonders in e-commerce as ‘touch’ is an important factor considered by many shoppers. Tactile feedback uses force and vibration to produce a sense of touch to the user. This will be very important for products like clothes as customers tend to evaluate the quality of clothes through feeling it’s texture. This can be the future solution for e-commerce businesses to further improve and eradicate the current problem of not being able to provide a complete shopping experience to the shoppers. Few e-commerce businesses have already started using AR effectively to retain their customer base in the coming future as it is very important for businesses to be able to study and adapt the new technology in time rather than being left behind and gradually being obsolete. For example – Amazon has introduced AR view which lets their shoppers to use camera of their smartphones, visualising the product in real places.

So, ‘touch’ plays a crucial part in mind of majority of shopper whether the customer is interested in online shopping or traditional shopping. Marketers can capitalise over this sensory urge of shoppers through providing better in store experience or in online shopping using AR and can build a positive perception about their product which will definitely be fruitful for their business.