The world of augmented and virtual reality went through an explosion during the COVID-19 crisis as retailers had to quickly come up with ways for customers to test products without physically going into stores.
In this episode of Point of Sale, Andrew Cox talked to Dijam Panigrahi, co-founder and COO of GridRaster, about the tech explosion and the way the retail industry adapted to physical shopping limitations.
GridRaster is a cloud-based AR/VR infrastructure provider that delivers companies the tech needed to build an alternate reality space. Currently, AR and VR are being used by retailers for trying on garments, rendering furniture and even providing a virtual experience of being in a store.
As far as the benefits of this method (besides reducing physical virus exposure), retailers that use VR and AR have increased customer satisfaction and conversion rates while dramatically reducing returns. Panigrahi said GridRaster is working to make the delivery of VR content seamless to the customer to make sure that satisfaction stays high.
“If you don’t have [AR/VR] yet, your company should get it,” according to Panigrahi, who said “this technology is going to stay and it’s going to stay because of its merit,” which was highlighted with the onset of the pandemic.
For the future, Panigrahi believes the technology will only get better to the point where augmented reality is standard and high-end tech will include things like holographic projections to simulate physical items or people in an alternate space.
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