Augmented Reality E-Commerce Examples and the Interaction With Web 3.0

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In today’s Web3tv interview, we’re with Mike Charalambous, the CEO of Threedium, and we’re going to discuss augmented reality e-commerce examples and the interaction with Web 3.0 technology.

What’s the difference between the internet and the 3-D internet?

It’s basically the flat version of the internet versus the vertical version where you can go away from the swiping to the navigating which brings a whole new dimension to how you interact, discover and explore products and brands and information.

Can you give me an example of the difference between swiping and navigating?

Imagine going into a marketplace and you need to swipe to go and see products. Unfortunately, you will need to swipe quite a lot to be able to discover the products that are sitting at the bottom. But if you go into the three dimensional internet where all of a sudden it’s more of a kind of a virtual shop build that allows you to just walk around and immerse yourself and navigate and see the things in front of you.

That’s where we create a whole new way for people to discover and explore and at the same time instead of clicking an image and then having to go open another page where it gives you all thedescriptive information, in the 3-D world you go in, you click the 3-dimensional products and just right next to it generates more information.

Ultimately, it gives you a much bigger, browsing autonomy and and everything can be interconnected right from the data from the products.

What is Augmented Reality That Is Becoming More Common?

Augmented reality is one of the major frontier technologies that is being introduced in the world and ultimately it’s the tool that allows you to blend your physical world with the digital world and having the ability to be able to either generate experiences or see products right in front of you or within  your physical contextual space which will either inform you better about specific products or specific experiences.

It enables brands to provide a tool for users to generate content in ways which we have never thought before so from an e- commerce, creative, informative or education perspective it is, is really one of the best tools that are going to optimize all these foundations, and this is why we’re also saying some of the biggest hardware out there like Apple are talking about introducing glasses and lenses, because really that’s going to be the natural evolution of moving everything from a screen where we swipe and read into our contextual world.

It’s very interesting and still very early on and there’s still a lot of things that one needs to adhere and resolve but it’s showing huge promise and can really take interactions to a whole different level.

Was The Pokemon Craze An Example Of Augmented Reality?

Pokemon was the first of its class that was able to make AR accessible to everybody and give them a small taste of what it is like to really start embracing and enjoying things that are not really there but you see them in front of you and you get the rush of excitement. That was definitely a huge unlock into the possibilities of AR and also to understand how user behavior shapes what they encounter. It is like the merge between the physical and digital world.

Can You Give Another Example Of What AR Looks Like In A Sporting Context?

Imagine you’re, walking into the stadium and you can scan something and all this information appears in front of you. All the players appear in front of you and you can see their their size and you can take pictures next to them, even if they’re not physically present.

Entertainment is definitely one of the industries that are embracing augmented reality faster and are doing some really cool stuff, and everyone else is like watching so that they can try to implement it into their own brand.

How is AR going to affect or be beneficial to e-commerce?

There are three ways right now, as we speak, that augmented reality is becoming truly beneficial for a lot of the brands embedding it into their commerce channels.

The most important aspect, especially for products such as bags or barbecues or cars, is the sizing.  For example, does that car actually fit in my garage? Does that barbecue actually fit in the space in the garden I’m looking to put it? What is the actual size of the bag before I buy it? Am I confusing the size based on the images that I’m seeing so? The opportunity that comes out of AR where your able to see the products in their true dimensions in your space is phenomenal.  It adds value on the conversion side but also on the product return side because the customer gets exactly what they see.

Secondly, especially for accessories, we’re now seeing this whole new notion of AR try on, where you’re able to see what a watch looks like on you, or you can try on shoes and sometimes even garments, although it’s still not perfect for garments. It fulfils that psychology in a user’s brain that they would like to see it on before they buy.

The third thing is just an experience and it’s user-generated content. It’s a whole new way for people to show off that they’re testing something or they are seeing something and if they are creative, they can create a whole nice user-generateed content with the stuff in AR which they can share and and show off with their friends. It also enables the brands to tap into a whole new way of marketing their products.

What are nfts, and how are they related to e-commerce and why should I care as an e-commerce store owner?

The only reason that, right now, that nfts should be of discussion is purely for token gated access, and I think that is going to be the focal point of discussion for ecommerce in 2023. Do you have something in your wallet that shows that they’re part of the community? Do you have something that proves you are already a legal owner of a physical or a digital item?

Then here is like this very hyper personalized page or experience that you can unlock because you’re already part of the community. And to some extent this can also be tied back to CRM. So having this community of wallets and people owning your products makes it much easier to generate all sorts of different loyalty, programs and experiences that can make them advocates for your brand.

While this idea is still new, as an e-commerce owner now is a goog time to learn and get educated and just get ready for what is going to happen later on. Mike is currently advising brands to launch something small so they get familiarized with it now, and do small touch points to understand how they can connect physical with digital and how they can forge different experiences in real life and digitally.

What is your future vision of Web3 and E-commerce?

Everything is going to start by being a bit more immersive. With the evolution of the internet, everything is going to become more transparent in terms of authenticity and tied back to blockchains to ensure that what you see is what you get. Your going to have way more protection as a consumer after you purchase something that you are the legal owner and that it’s certified you as being yours.

There is going to be much bigger accessibility and traceability of things so really we’re going to see a shift in power going more towards the buyers versus the sellers and we are truly going into a whole new era where product displays are going to go to the next level.

In the mid-term it is likely brands can provide a personalized experience where a user can use a 3-D internet and have a whole different experience to the next person and I think that is going to be a very beautiful thing and that’s where we’re going to be seeing true engagement and true long-term relationships between brand products and users.