What's the forecast for AR, VR technology?

I feel like a weather forecaster with a hurricane warning: There is a storm named AR/VR brewing on the periphery of e-commerce, and it will make landfall in 2018 in furniture.

By AR, I mean augmented reality, which overlays 3D images, text or other data onto whatever you are viewing through your smartphone camera. VR, virtual reality, places you in and lets you interact with an artificial environment in real time.

AR and VR let shoppers visualize high-consideration purchases such as upholstered furniture in whatever space they seek to personalize. This moves shoppers down the purchase funnel — sometimes right to the purchase click, sometimes to your showroom if yours becomes a (the) finalist in their selection process.

When I say the storm is brewing, I mean other retailers already employing AR are raising your customers’ comfort levels and expectations for this technology as part of their shopping journeys.

Making landfall means that too many investors are pushing for returns, too many investors and retailers comprehend the potential, and too many retailers see their inevitability to let these technologies languish in the hands of slow adopters — be they retailers or customers.

Some examples:

• Starbucks uses AR to educate customers about the coffee and complex brewing process on offer in its largest store on the globe, which opened in December in Shanghai.
• Wayfair, Overstock.com, Ikea, Houzz, Target, Williams-Sonoma, HouseTipster, Anthropologie, Lowe’s, Build.com, Feizy, The Mine, Jerome’s Furniture and Ashley Furniture all offer AR shopping apps.
• Ikea gave 14,000 U.S. employees VR headsets as a “holiday gift”.
• Coldplay’s August show in Chicago can (still) be viewed in VR.
• Airbnb announced last week it is working on AR and VR experiences to help guests preview rooms and destinations, as well as to share travel experiences.
• Swarovski and MasterCard launched this fall a VR experience that lets shoppers view items in a virtual home and make purchases by staring at an icon.
• The wine 19 Crimes released an AR app for smartphones; open the app while viewing the bottle in the camera, and the convict’s photo on the label animates to tell you the story behind 19 Crimes.

If research convinces you, look at Gartner Inc.’s Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2017: Augmented reality already has hit the bottom of the Trough of Disillusionment, which means it is ready to ascend the Slope of Enlightenment, beyond which lies the Plateau of Productivity.

Virtual reality already is about half way up the Slope of Enlightenment.

Metaphorically speaking, furniture retailers should hear this as a storm surge watch. If you don’t have a website, consider it your storm surge warning.