What are the new onlife commerce trends, and how can they be tapped into?

What advantages are still to be had from shopping in a physical store as opposed to the onlife commerce experience?

The answer to the first question most commonly given in surveys is that the physical in-store shopping experience offers the possibility to try and touch the product, which is not possible for online purchases. It therefore appears clear that shopping in-store is not preferable to the alternative due to the inability to make the same transaction online – this barrier has now been overcome even by the less technologically minded – but because people remain faithful to the physical store and the possibility to verify, in real time, the quality of the product they intend to purchase.

 
Why shop online?

Similarly, if we are asked about the benefits of purchasing online, answers most frequently mention the extensive catalogue there is to look through, the variety of products, convenience and price. And the factors that come into play also include the opportunity to shop 24/7 and to compare prices.

What are the trends?

If we take a look at trends, the perfect experience is one that is able to fully integrate e-commerce with physical stores. IoT and AR/VR are the most advanced technologies that allow us to collect data on the customer experience; they are useful to offer new purchasing experiences, and allow us to increase the amount of product information available, for example using QR codes.

In the retail sphere, augmented reality today allows us to talk about a 360° shopping experience: shoppers can move around stores as if they were physically present, enjoying a virtual purchasing experience online that also engages the senses. Depending on where we look, how we move and what we touch, data is gathered on our behaviour. These technologies are not very widespread yet, but they are certainly growing rapidly, and top the list of consumer requests in the retail sector.
 

Augmented reality: some successful examples to improve the onlife consumer experience

Many companies have begun using augmented reality to promote their products or services. One case worth mentioning of this is lkea Place, the application made available by Ikea to make the most of the possibilities offered by augmented reality, offering customers the chance not only to make design choices for their homes, but to make life-size projects online.

Farfetch and Balenciaga: a new way to try on and display clothes online

The Farfetch platform also uses virtual and augmented reality, creating try-on experiences for customers for a selection of e-commerce products, in order to allow them to make more informed purchasing choices and see how clothing and accessories fit and look “live”.

Another successful example of how augmented reality can be used in the fashion sector is provided by the Balenciaga brand, which during lockdown presented its new collection with a dystopic video game in which players were able to interact with the models and move from one room to another, depending on the mission to be completed.

Burberry’s first Social Retail Store in China

Also in the retail sector, we cannot fail to mention Burberry, which in partnership with Tencent has opened the first Social Retail Store in Shenshen, China’s Silicon Valley. This 539-square-metre, ten-room store embraces the concepts of social retail, i.e. the integration of physical stores with online tools and digital channels. How does it work? This store attempts to connect online life with in-store life, so that one can add value to the other: customers can interact in the store through a dedicated chatroom where they can take notes, try on items, chat with customer service and find out about new products; the more the customers interact with Burberry, the more points they earn through the brand’s “social currency”.

Pokemon Go and geolocated augmented reality

Lastly, we cannot fail to mention an exceptional case in 2016: Pokemon Go, the free-to-play smartphone video game based on geolocated augmented reality, downloaded more than 75 million times. The advantage of the type of technology used in this famous game, which allows users to train and capture Pokémon, is that it is particularly accessible, because all it requires is the use of a smartphone and a dedicated app: it is sufficient to frame the surrounding area with the phone camera to access all the content offered by the software.

Conclusion: each experience has its design to be created

‘Onlife’ is a neologism that indicates the blurring of the line that separates the physical and digital universes. The onlife experience is a dynamic process that evolves in time and space, and this is what it must be designed for. Onlife commerce makes for more complex experiences, and therefore also transforms user experience design, turning it from the design of objects to the design of actual large ecosystems. It consists of designing these experiences by connecting products, places, services and people, almost as if they were instruments that form an orchestra: the more different elements are mixed together, the more innovative music they will produce.