Augmented Reality and Its Relationship With Customer Experience in Retailing

Introduction

The retail sector has undergone a significant change compared to the past and continues to do so. The most influential factor on this change is the Internet and it is said that its impact on the sector will continue in the coming years (Doherty, & Ellis-Chadwick, 2010; Griffiths, & Howard, 2008). When someone look at what kind of changes the internet brings to the sector, the most important thing that stands out is the born of multichannel retailing. In other words, a new channel was created and a lot of retailers have move to it. As a result, e-commerce has shown significant growth in the past years (Sands, Ferraro, & Luxton, 2010).

Although online sales continue to increase, retailers have to deal with a number of challenges. The best known of these difficulties are high product return rates and online shopping card abandonment (Dacko, 2016; Hilken et al., 2018). Webrooming is also mentioned as a worry which retailers face (Dacko, 2016; Hilken et al., 2018). Webrooming is defined as a consumer behaviour which people search for information online and then purchas offline (Flavian et al., 2016). It is claimed that the reason for these problems is because consumers cannot have direct experience with products on the internet (Hilken et al., 2017; Overmars and Poels, 2015). The lack of a direct experience of consumers with products leads to an increased sense of uncertainty in them, resulting in the perception that online shopping is risky (Yaoyuneyong et al., 2014). In addition, the fact that consumers have no realistic expectations about products due to not being in direct contact with them leads to poor online consumer experience (Mooy & Robben, 2002).

There is also another consumer behaviour which is the opposite of webrooming and called showrooming. In this behaviour type, not only data is collected in physical stores, also consumers evaluate products in physical stores and then purchase online) (Neslin et al., 2014). These both consumer practices are frequently used in omnichannel consumer behaviour (Flavián, Gurrea, & Orús, 2020). There are obviously negative consequences of these behaviors for retailers, specifically causes free-riding behaviors of consumers. In this behavior style, one retailer’s channel is specifically preferred by consumers for their searching and planning, and then to purchase the product consumers switch to another retailer’s channel (Chiou et al., 2012; Chiu et al., 2011). As it is mentioned above the reason for customers in engaging in free-riding behavior is escaping or decrasing hesitations related with the purchasing process. Presently, consumer can reach a huge amount of onformation on online channels. However, consumers cannot actually examine products or get personal recommendation on the internet.

However, it does not mean that webroomers and showroomers are always free riders. They can use the same retailer’s both channels (Neslin and Shankar, 2009; Gensler et al., 2017) which is the desired situation for all retailers. As it is said the most valued segment for retailers is the one which consists of buyers who use both online and offline channels in their buying processes (Fernandez et al., 2018). Studies showed that this valuable segment who use multiple channels of the same retailer buy more products, spend more, and pay higher prices than single-channel consumers (Fernandez et al., 2018; Lee and Kim, 2008; Van Baal and Dach, 2005). Realizing this, online retailers are looking for ways to provide their customers with an unforgettable experience in both channels. Technological developments and digital technologies have an important role in the creating of better consumer experience. Using different technologies in retailing is called smart retailing and is a platform that retailers and customers use to increase the quality of their customers' experiences (Belk, 2010; Pantano & Timmermans, 2014). Examples of smart retailing applications include interactive displays, smart shopping carts, radio frequency identification systems (RFID), shopping assistant systems, near field communication systems (NFC), and augment-reality interactive technology (Roy et al., 2017). Smart retail technologies that enable superior and personalized retail services, might create the ways which, in the end, can positively enhance the retail experience of customers (Hoffman and Novak, 2015; Wünderlich et al., 2013). The application of such smart technologies has other advantages for retailers in addition to providing a better customer experience. These include improved firm management, reduced costs, and ultimately greater profitability (Renko & Druzijanic, 2014).