The cutting-edge technology, Augmented Reality (AR) has changed the vision of the world. AR has already yet to proven its efficiency in many sectors. Retail has always been one of the most trending sectors and with the endless opportunities provided by AR, there is no limitation to how it would be evolved. This would be gateway to many revolutionary changes in the fashion or the retail world. This advanced technology will now allow the customers to have a more detailed and personalized shopping experience. By now we are very much familiar with the fact that there are no confines placed and hence it wouldn’t come as a surprise if in the near future we would have an electric stylist, or shopping with the help of AR devices.
Jawstrow, a company based out in Los Angeles is on its way to revolutionize the way traditional retail is being viewed. Taking advantage of the AR, the team at Jawstrow has entered the mainstream of retail business while carving its way out of the crowd.
An Innovative Approach towards Fashion Business
Running under the trade name, name SneakAR™; Jawstrow Inc is a SaaS solution provider. Powered by the untapped yet the pervasive power of AR, Jawstrow has developed an internal currency, which is being paired with its designed behavioral reward system in order to revitalize the traditional shopping experience. By thus, it has also renewed a quality foot-traffic to local retail.
The Backstage Story of Jawstrow
This revolutionary thought is the creation of Charles Wong. After completing his graduation, Charles and his friends decided to go on a backpack trip to Europe. While his stay in Europe he was accommodated next to Koelnmesse, an expo center. Coincidentally, a VR/AR conference was being held by Digility which gained Charles attention. Upon attending this conference, Charles was enlightened with the revolutionary technology, AR and its products. Charles got a glimpse of what this technology can do and what all can be done. However, the real source of inspiration for Charles that helped him start Jawstrow was his encounter with the locals of that area. While his stay at Europe he had befriended a local girl, who guided him through the city. Upon being invited to her place for dinner, Charles and his friends learned about their boutique, namely Madamski. The design and the products on sale had grabbed Charles whole attention. Further, he came to know about the hardships of running a boutique and how they might shut down their business as most of the customers have shifted to online shopping. She also added how other boutiques are facing the same challenge.
This made Charles wonder, what if he were to build the same shop but with the help of VR? What if boutique leverages both the immersive realism of VR, novelty experience of AR and online channels to boost sale without having to compromise? Once Charles had returned back from his Europe trip he started thinking about the same. He spent months exploring the opportunities of AR and VR space with the people who shared the same mindset of saving the traditional retail.
Marching Ahead of the Obstacles
Despite of the lower adoption rate of VR, Jawstrow has successfully built a SaaS platform that provides endless services to the retailer. It stands out from others in the market or among the competitors as the team at Jawstrow has built a whole reward incentivized system with integrated AR capabilities and gamified it. With the constantly advancing technology and the evolving challenges, Jawstrow has managed to stay unwavering from its goal. “Though this endeavor has been challenging, we’ve always stayed true to our founding values which is both to revamp traditional retail and also create an initiative for people to value virtual goods” adds, Charles.
Embracing Technology and Racing Ahead
“If we were taking the gartner curve into the consideration, I think we are slowly climbing out of the trough of disillusionment”, quotes Charles when asked about the advancements in AR/VR. Charles adds that even if there have been commendable significant strides made in VR there is still a barrier prevalent for the average consumers to reach up to it. “Mobile VR headsets I think are taking people away from truly experiencing a quality immersive experience”, adds Charles. However, Charles is very much optimistic about the advancements in AR. “I am more optimistic with AR. ARkit and ARcore SDKs have made the technology much more accessible, Magic Leap recently released their SDK too. I think we’d be witnessing more use cases coming from AR.”, Charles quoted.
The rise of e-commerce added with the advancing in technology has resulted in the downfall of traditional retail market. Taking this into consideration Jawstrow has put forward measures to help the traditional markets to sustain and flourish in the market. Charles commented saying that, “We want our traditional brick & mortar stores to leverage their advantage in their physical locations— don’t play catch up with online retailers.” The team of innovative thinkers at Jawstrow has realized that these brick & motor stores can’t fill their stores like an inventory warehouse. Instead it needs to become an immersive environment, a place to both educate and entertain their customers. The technology designed by Jawstrow creates that particular experience for store owners, thereby increasing foot-traffic.
Source :-The 10 Most Innovative AR/VR Solution Providers 2018
