So, without further ado, let me give you a run down of our thinking on 3D Virtual Fitting Rooms:

THE GOOD

1. Depth Sensing Cameras – The cameras these executions are using are cutting edge and offer (developers) some huge opportunities to create compelling motion/gesture based user interfaces, and overall more sophisticated augmented reality user experiences. A depth sensing camera’s functionality is simply leaps and bounds more advanced than the average person’s webcam… it’s not even close. To borrow a Larry Miller quote: “It’s the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.”
2. Powerful Hardware Systems – When we’re looking at In-Store 3D Virtual Fitting Rooms, developers are able to control the hardware that’s powering the experience. That means they can create significantly more powerful applications since they don’t need to build software for the hardware the average user has at home (like we do). This is definitely a benefit.
3. Foot Traffic – These types of systems are pretty novel, and initially people will be interested in playing around with them. So if you’re one of the first stores to utilize the tech, you’ll probably generate a bit of extra foot traffic, and a bit of buzz.

THE BAD

1. At Home Hardware & Penetration – All of these 3D Virtual Fitting Rooms claim to work in people’s homes. And technically, that’s possible. They can be made to work in a home, but I’m going to get right to the point: do you have a depth sensing camera at home? Probably not. In short, that means you can’t use the 3D Virtual Fitting Room.  The fact is PCs and connected TVs are a few years away from having depth sensing cameras integrated natively, so realistically your only opportunity to have a depth sensing camera at home is to own a Microsoft Kinect.  So, let’s assume you have a Microsoft Kinect at home — after all, as of March there were already 10 million units sold. First off, as we discuss consumer reach, is should be noted that that number pales in comparison to the PC numbers Intel noted recently: over 1 million computers are sold daily and there are 1.5 billion in use. Second, Microsoft hasn’t announced details around commercial licenses for the Kinect. And that’s important. Will a retailer have to pay 50 grand to create Xbox applications? Will Microsoft take 30% of sales and kill any margins? Will they even allow a third party shopping application on X-Box Live or will they “reject” them when submitted? These are all questions that today we don’t know the answers to. So, if only a minority of people even have potentially compatible hardware, and those that do have no ability to access the software… how can people realistically use a retailer’s 3D Virtual Fitting Room at home?
2. Content Is King, And There Is No Content – This one will be quick: Manufacturers/Retailers don’t have 3D assets of their clothing items, and as of today 3D assets for augmented reality are cost prohibitive to produce. And without clothes, it’s not a very compelling “fitting room” is it?
3. “Fit” Just Can’t Be Done – Even if retailers could create perfect looking 3D assets in a cost effective manner, these alleged “3D Virtual Fitting Rooms” can’t accurately portray fit (i.e. where a garment would actually bunch, hang, or bulge on a person’s very unique body), or provide shopper’s with the tactile feedback that’s such a key component of the “promise of fit”.
4. What’s The Value-Ad For The In-Store Shopper? – Question: What exactly does the spate of 3D Virtual Fitting Rooms add to the current in-store shopping experience? It’s new… and different, sure. But does it truly help the shopper shop? Once they get past some initial “wow factor”, will it continue to add to the shopping experience? I mean, the actual dress is three feet away on a hanger. If they’re at home, I get it.  It can help them to better visualize what the item might look like on them.  But why would a shopper that’s in a store prefer to “hold up” a digital dress, rather than feel and interact with the real deal? They made the effort to leave their homes, and come to a store. Why would they then opt for an experience they could pretty much have at home on their laptop?

As I’m sure you can guess, in my opinion the “bad” outweighs the “good” for today’s crop of 3D Virtual Fitting Rooms. The technology is incredibly powerful but I think that the realities of the current marketplace make this technology an unwise investment for retailers.  To be honest, if a retailer has the luxury of being on a development timeline that lasts a few years and can afford some R&D, then my advice would change. But with budgets being tight, if a retailer wants to make an impact today, I think it’s way more prudent for them to start with a 2D experience online. It’ll cost less; will be easier to produce/execute; will be usable by significantly more of their shoppers; and, already has data to support its effectiveness.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts below…  And you can find me on twitter here.

In a recent Forbes op-ed Raj Rao (global director, eCommerce and Digital Marketing, 3M Corporate Marketing) cites a ComScore report that states that 2/3rds of shoppers begin their shopping process online, usually on the retail site itself. The report also notes that nearly half of shoppers who begin their search on retail sites make a purchase in the physical store, while 40% transact online. Think about that. More of a retailer’s site visitors will end up purchasing in store, than on the actual site itself.  Obviously, measuring ROI is no longer as straight forward as it once seemed.

The data above, and his own experiences point Rao towards the following conclusion: “Marketers must rise to the challenge. The solution isn’t banner ads or page take-overs that consumers despise. Instead we need to do the hard work of true marketing and ask: What is the consumer experience at retail sites, and how can I positively impact this?”

It probably comes as no shock to you, but we here at Zugara agree with Mr. Rao. Today, online retailers are content providers. Publishers. And just like in any other content driven business, the retailers that produce the best content, the best experience, will win.  So what do you think?  What stores are “doing it right”?

(Warning: Shameless Self Promotion) Oh, and speaking of online shopping experiences… have you heard of our product: The Webcam Social Shopper?

Recently, we partnered with SocialVibe and Deutsch to create the “Anthem Blue Cross Webcam Exam” for Zynga’s network. It’s a fun, interactive Augmented Reality “Check-Up” that reminds people of the importance of seeing a Doctor regularly. It actually uses facial tracking to allow people to naturally interact with several Doctor’s tools, like that thinga-ma-bobby that they use to look at your eye (sorry for using such technical language).

Below, is a demo link for those of you that want to check it out. I’ve also embedded a few screencaps below as a mini walk-through to showcase the engagement. I’d love to get your thoughts on the execution in the comment section, and as always, you can find me on twitter here.

Click Here To Demo The Execution (note: sharing is disabled)

The branded engagement is initiated when people click on banner at the bottom of the first screenshot:

Sorry, for some reason we’re having trouble embedding the video. If you don’t see it above, you can view it on YouTube here.

Okay, so back to the question at hand: Why don’t we develop for mobile? The short answer? It’s simply not strategic to do so. Let me explain our thinking:

The Addressable Market Is Just A Fraction Of The Computer Market

Our shopping application functions like a mirror, so that means people need to have their screen, and their camera facing the same direction (AKA a forward facing camera). For the computer market, that’s just the way it works… but in the mobile space, that essentially leaves us with two consumer devices: the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2.

Like all businesses, we need to be laser focused and strategic with both our financial and human resources. So let’s look at where we can have a greater impact now. Let’s look at the potential consumer reach for PCs, iPad 2s, and iPhone 4s:

• PC: 1.5 Billion in use (note: as we detailed in a previous post, webcam penetration and usage is skyrocketing).
• Source: Intel
• iPad 2: 15 Million sold.
• Sources: In September, The Daily Beast stated that 30 Million iPads had been sold. Back in March at the iPad 2 launch event Steve Jobs noted that 15 Million iPads had already been sold.
• iPhone 4: 50 to 75 Million sold (note: we don’t know how many of these are replacements for a previously purchased iPhone 4).
• Sources: At the recent iPhone 4S event, Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that the iPhone 4 accounts for half of all iPhone’s sold. Back in March Steve Jobs noted that since 2007 Apple had sold 100 Million iPhones.

Okay, so let’s put the combined iPad 2 and iPhone 4 sales at the high end of that range: 90 million units. It’s an impressive number, but those sales totals are just 6% of the PCs that Intel states are “in use”… and it should be noted that Intel also states that PCs are selling at a rate of 1 million per day. And here’s another metric for you: 93% of digital traffic is consumed by PCs. That means that the entire Smartphone and tablet market (i.e. not just Apple’s two most recent product launches) accounts for only 7% of digital traffic consumption.

So, when looking at the addressable markets, it’s pretty clear that the computer has the upper hand.

It Would Be A Horrible Experience For The Shopper

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the PC market didn’t dwarf the mobile market. Let’s assume everyone had a Smartphone and they all had forward forcing cameras. There’s still a rather large usability issue keeping us from developing for those devices. And that’s the arm length of the average person. If you noticed, in the video embedded above, the young woman is standing roughly 4 – 6 feet away from her computer. That’s because she’s visualizing if a dress’s style is right for her, so she needs to see her entire body. If you’re holding a Smartphone in your hand, you just can’t hold the phone far enough away to have that experience. And at the end of the day, if we aren’t providing an amazing experience for the shopper, than what the heck is the point?

Now I get it, mobile, especially the iPhone and the iPad get an overwhelming amount of media attention. Are they revolutionary products? Yes. I’m not debating that. Is the future bright for mobile? Of course. But that’s the future, and as a company we’re focused on how we can make the biggest impact in people’s lives today (and over the next 5 years).

Did you know that one day after download, only 20% of users come back and run an iPhone app? And after a month, that number drops to 5% (chart). For us, it’s not about producing an augmented reality app that people won’t use but will get us covered by the press. It’s about measureable impact. It’s about disrupting the way people shop online today, and providing them with a significantly better experience. On computers we can do that. On mobile devices, we can’t.

What do you think? Are we right? Wrong? As always, you can find me on twitter here.

From Hidden’s Blog:

The Methodology

100 people were shown a display advert for a child’s toy, while another 100 people were shown the child’s toy as an interactive augmented reality experience. Each person was then asked two questions:

• Would you consider buying this toy for a child?
• How much would you consider paying for the toy?

The duration of engagement the audience had with each format was also monitored.  Let’s look at the headline figures:

Likelihood to buy

After viewing the 2D printed display advert, out of 100 parents, 45% would consider buying the toy for a child. Out of those who viewed the augmented reality experience, 74% of the parents would consider buying the toy for a child.  What we found even more intriguing was the price point at which the parents were prepared to make the purchase.

Beginning today visitors to online fashion boutique Banana Flame will see that the retailer has rolled out Zugara’s Augmented Reality E-Commerce software “The Webcam Social Shopper” (WSS) to every product detail page on the site. Two elements make this WSS launch different:

1. Banana Flame has integrated WSS as an advanced product-viewing tool for their shoppers, not as a marketing campaign. Every single piece of clothing on Banana Flame’s site will give shopper’s access to WSS via a seamlessly integrated “see how it looks” button. (screenshot below)
2. It’s the first time the recently released “Plug & Play” version of WSS has been licensed.

WSS utilizes several pieces of emerging technology to turn shopper’s webcams into interactive “mirrors”, providing online shoppers with that “at the rack moment” where they grab a hanger off the rack, hold the piece of clothing up to themselves and turn to a friend (and/or the mirror) to ask “what do you think, is this me?”

With WSS the Banana Flame experience now allows shoppers to:

• Immediately see if a piece of clothing’s color/style is right for them
• Snap photos and share looks with friends to get instant feedback (via Facebook, email, or Twitter)
• Match their existing wardrobes with potential new purchases
• Have a more fun and rewarding online shopping experience

“Our customers are young, savvy, followers of up to the minute trends and lovers of all things stylish. They grew up digitally”, said Emily Walker, Creative Director of Banana Flame. ‘‘Of course they love to shop in store, but with a heavy work load and an increasingly hectic way of life they’re choosing more and more of their favorite items online. As an online retailer, it’s critical to our business that we create the best and most enjoyable shopping experiences available to customers, so that when they do choose to shop online, they do it with us. And that’s what the Webcam Social Shopper gives us, a brand building and personal shopping experience tailored to each individual that they will not only love but also return to time and time again.”

A few years ago the number of retailers that were integrating product-viewing features like zooming, product videos, and 360 degree spins were few and far between. Now these “advanced viewing features” are becoming common place and are irreplaceable elements of a shopper’s purchase validation process. In fact, data from Limelight Networks Inc. shows that these types of features make shoppers more likely to purchase, and more brand loyal. WSS is simply the next iteration of these types of tools, providing shoppers with more information, and subsequently more confidence in, their purchase decisions.

Relevant Links:

• Banana Flame’s Site: www.bananaflame.com
• Usability Testing Data: http://bit.ly/WSSusability
• Webcam Social Shopper Features: http://www.webcamsocialshopper.com/products/

Please do spread the word about this news, and if you’d like more information, please feel free to contact us at info(at)Zugara(dot)com.

Now the technology companies that require plug-ins for their Augmented Reality executions aren’t quick to release stats regarding bounce rates (which isn’t exactly the most shocking piece of news), but I just found some stats in a Unity Technologies blog post that I find incredibly telling. Unity Technologies are the makers of Unity 3 “a game development tool that has been designed to let you (developers) focus on creating amazing games.” Like Shockwave, Unity 3 requires that the gamer has a specific plug-in to play the games that are developed using the proprietary platform.

In their blog post, Unity divulges that for users that don’t already have the plug-in only 60% successfully install it. They go on to note that “for Shockwave we believe it is around 40%.” Obviously, in relation to Shockwave, a 60% success rate is pretty good… but that still means 40% of the people you’ve worked to get to your site, are opting out of the experience because of the download. And judging by the fact that they blogged about it, it appears that a 40% bounce rate is a good number for the industry…

Okay, I don’t want to argue, so let’s just split the difference between the Unity and Shockwave numbers noted above and say that the average successful download rate is 50%.  If you’re creating an Augmented Reality experience for people, a 50% success rate on a download is unacceptable, and terrible for your business. Would you stand outside a brick and mortar store and only let in 50% of the potential customers people who wanted to enter? Of course not…   So why aren’t we as an industry applying the same principles to our online branding?  Why do you think marketers are still forcing downloads on their consumers?  What are the “pros” that outweigh (what I see as) a very big “con”?  I’d love to hear your thoughts below (especially if you have more data on download rates)…

If you get a moment, it’s definitely worth checking out all the winners, as there’s some great work being showcased.