The online marketplace has been undergoing a huge number of large changes over the last while.
Among all the changes going on with the online marketplace, eBay augmented reality is one of the latest features headed to its m-commerce site.
The news about its dabbling with AR comes at a time when it has nearly entirely severed itself from PayPal.
The near full separation from PayPal was easily the most surprising change. However, word has now been revealed that suggests that there are a number of different consumer experience changes on the way, too. This includes new eBay augmented reality features.
There is considerable potential to using AR for mobile commerce shopping. There are many different possible uses for the technology. For example, most obviously, shoppers would be able to use the feature to help imagine how something would look within the space they would like to keep it. For example, if they want to see how a poster would look on the wall, a throw pillow would look on a couch, or even how a tie would look with a shirt, the tech would let them see it.
There would also be a number of benefits to sellers who could use the eBay augmented reality.
For instance, a seller would be able to better decide what size box to use in order to ship the item, which will make it easier to estimate packing and shipping costs. This would effectively suit other online shipping tools such as the “if it packs, it ships” USPS tool online which uses pre-selected box sizes. All the seller would need to do is use the augmented reality feature to overlay the box sizes over the item in real life. As soon as an option is selected that completely covers the item, they know they’ve found the right box size.
That said, the actual uses for the augmented reality option at eBay remain speculation as the official purpose for the upcoming feature has yet to be released by the company itself. Still, it does underscore the fact that eBay is doing what it can to keep up with other players that are also using AR technology to appeal to mobile shoppers.
Top name retailers using augmented reality in their mobile commerce experience include IKEA and Wayfair. Precisely what eBay augmented reality will have to offer has yet to be seen.
