Transforming Retail With 5G and Augmented Reality

Today, buyers during in-store shopping can't compare, search, sort or filter across multiple products the same way they do online. These things limit shoppers' shopping experiences. But 5G and augmented reality (AR) are assisting in making that dream shopping experience a reality.

As the uncertainty around a new mobile network, and from the network new retail applications and experiences came, all are taking advantages of the faster speed of the technology, and the potential to shrink friction. Though 4G allows in-store pick up of online orders, 5G has the potential to bring to the best of in-store and digital retail experiences together.

5G's high speeds, gigantic bandwidth, and low latency empower extremely fast AR object recognition on quite a lot of products at once so buyers can compare products at real-time and get product reviews based on the star ratings across manifold items in a single screenshot.

Since virtual reality (VR) lean towards an immersive experience for the computer, a place where digital worlds are generated, including those for retail products, or the placement of products inside the consumer's home, conversely, AR tends to add digital components to a view of the real, live world.

Assisting in Retail Transformation

Recently, news from Verizon's 5G Lab in New York City reported that the company has been manifesting a 5G use case that can provide benefits in saving time and money when seeking to compare prices or review product ratings and specifications. Verizon's application enables customers to hold up a smartphone or tablet to mock grocery shelves and easily get which products have allergens. For example, while searching nuts, the company's application will demonstrate it with the words "Nuts", "No Nuts" or "Traces of Nuts", over all of the products on the shelves in real-time on buyers' screen. The experience can also be tailored to recognize other allergens products and to look at their ratings and reviews, "how-to" videos and do price comparisons.

Verizon 5G Dev Labs Director T.J. Vitolo says, "We're taking product information you'd normally get on the internet and bringing it quickly into the real world to help people make more informed, rapid decisions about purchasing." According to him, "The great thing about 5G is in a few years, we can take all of this capability and move it off the smartphone and onto a pair of smart glasses. As you walk down the aisle, you'll see the product information displayed passively in your field of vision without having to pull out your phone."

The Verizon's announcement further elucidates that if someone thinks, they have an innovative product, service or application that utilizes 5G and can transform the way the company work, live and play enter Verizon's "Built on 5G Challenge." And, the winners will be awarded up to $1 million.

Recent 5G Retail Deals

Earlier this week South Korea-based SK Telecom and the retail conglomerate Shinsegae Group have teamed up and come together to build new business models and innovative services for the 5G networks-powered logistics and distribution sectors. As part of the deal, both companies will develop 5G-based business models that can be employed to Shinsegae's department stores and discount store chain E-Mart, with several shopping malls, as the report noted.

According to the report, that exertion will seemingly comprise VR accompanied by AR. And the plan is to leverage VR technology to empower shoppers to shop through digital platforms as opposed to visiting in-store.

On the use of AR and VR technologies, a recent study from Gartner indicates that 100 million consumers by next year will be utilizing both technologies for shopping online and in-store. Also, there is a good reason to be expectant to embracing 5G, because its capabilities can assist multiple uses cases like real-time rendering for immersive video, shorter download and setup times and addendum of brands and shopping experiences beyond stores.