As the global augmented reality (AR) retail market surges toward $64.4 billion by 2030, supermarkets are discovering that AR is far more than a technological novelty — it’s a critical strategy for survival in an increasingly competitive retail landscape.
For years, retailers have wrestled with the challenge of luring customers back to physical stores.
E-commerce offers convenience, but the supermarket remains the financial heartbeat of retail.
Even Amazon, which boasts the most efficient order fulfilment operation in the world, settles for merger profit margins (at a galactic scale, of course).
The fundamental economic truth is simple: in-store shopping drives profitability, leaving more opportunities for impulse purchases.
However, supermarkets must give customers a reason to shop in person by bringing the benefits of the digital experience to the shopping aisles, writes James Hughes, Retail CTO at Verizon Business.
From frustration to footfall
Grocery stores across Europe are no longer just experimenting with augmented reality but deploying it en masse. Nearly a decade after the crazed popularity of Pokémon Go — with more than 500 million app downloads — the promise of AR is taking off. In the last few years, Marks & Spencer, Nisa, Carrefour and Coop, to name a few, have all launched their own initiatives that bring shopping aisles into the virtual world while delivering tangible benefits.
Marks & Spencer’s List & Go app helps customers find items in-store, helping shoppers locate items more easily while suggesting relevant promotions, reducing search time and increasing impulse purchases. Conad, one of Italy’s largest grocers, recently introduced an AR virtual avatar, HeyConad, to inform customers about products. When shoppers scan certain items with a smartphone, a friendly animated avatar appears in AR to explain the product’s origin, ingredients or sustainability credentials.
Current grocery shopping experiences are fraught with inefficiency. Consider these stark statistics: over two-thirds of consumers have left stores without purchasing anything simply because they couldn’t find what they needed. It is anticipated that the store staff typically spend a meaningful amount of their time giving directions to customers — a clear signal that traditional store layouts are no longer fit for purpose.
AR ‘wayfinding’ offers a solution that goes beyond mere convenience. It can turn the grocery run into a much more seamless, even enjoyable experience through digital overlays. Instead of scanning aisle signs or flagging down staff, shoppers could get real-time guidance straight to what they need, along with smart deal alerts and pairing suggestions.
Turning aisles into experiences
More ambitious brands are using AR beyond mere store navigation to create deeper customer engagement.
Robinsons’ Britvic Mirror activation installed in a major UK grocery chain of stores exemplifies this transformation. Far from being just a technical showcase, it delivers a masterclass in retail storytelling, with AR ‘magic mirrors’ that transform shoppers into Elphaba or Glinda in real-time — cleverly connecting the new Wicked movie release with Robinsons’ glittery squash flavour. The experience, supported by Verizon’s network infrastructure, demonstrates how seamless connectivity underpins these innovations. By enabling grocery aisle visitors to become beloved characters, Verizon demonstrates how augmented reality can elevate routine shopping into memorable brand experiences that online simply cannot match.
This approach taps into the growing demand for in-store experiences that e-commerce simply can’t replicate. It’s about fostering connection, keeping shoppers engaged for longer, and sparking impulse buys. For brands and retailers navigating tight margins, it’s not just a gimmick — it’s a smart, strategic way to captivate and convert customers.
The tech infrastructure challenge
All of this is possible right now, but it requires a network infrastructure that can support these experiences: high speeds, low latency, and lots of bandwidth. Yet current grocery store infrastructure is woefully unprepared for the data-intensive nature of augmented reality experiences. IT modernisation efforts are estimated to cost European grocery retailers up to €19 billion cumulatively by 2030. A single AR shopper churns through roughly 1GB per hour, yet nearly 85% of European supermarkets admit they have not fully implemented their edge computing plans, which are required for rendering holographic and high-fidelity content for AR interactions. Verizon’s whitepaper* also found that just 15% of grocery and general merchandise businesses have customer Wi-Fi in-store, with 42% planning on deploying it.
Many grocery stores rely on legacy systems that create a tangled web of disconnected stock data, pricing platforms, and promotional tools that don’t talk to each other. These experiences must be seamless to warrant the overall effort, which means investing in wireless solutions, multi-access edge computing, IoT sensors, and so on and so forth. With the right infrastructure in place, a whole new universe of retail opportunities opens up.
Investment & income generator, not expense
AR represents a critical investment in future-proofing. This isn’t about following a trend but fundamentally reimagining retail in an increasingly digital landscape. Retailers should view this as a strategic opportunity rather than a cost centre.
Online grocery shopping may have eaten into the supermarket’s profit margins, but it has also laid the groundwork for a new retail paradigm — one that seamlessly blends digital capabilities with physical spaces, creating immersive, personalised experiences that delight consumers while boosting retailers’ bottom lines. The future belongs to retailers willing to embrace digital transformation and reimagine what grocery shopping can be.
*”Smarter Retail: How Enterprise Intelligence is bringing digital experiences in-store”
Comments are closed.