In retail stores across the world, the sight of contactless payments by phone or by card has become commonplace. But more than 30 per cent of the world’s population are now considered digital shoppers and the online retail market was worth a staggering $768bn in the USA alone last year – and it’s a market that is expected to double in size by 2025.
So maybe it makes sense that technology is looking at ways to merge the contactless retail experience with the online world. Research and Markets thematic report into Augmented Reality retailing – which sees the real world overlaid with digital data – says that the emerging AR retailing market will be worth $152bn by 2030. Not bad for a market that was as small as $7bn just two years ago.
And the phenomena is certainly attracting attention, witness the announcement earlier this year from Adobe saying it was building tools for augmented reality retail. Adobe’s AR and 3D shopping tools will allow customers to scan products with their mobile phone and bring up useful information such as price comparisons drawn from the merchant’s database.
As the Research and Markets report shows, plenty of companies are exploring this space across both the retail and technology landscape – John Lewis, Louis Vuitton, Footlocker, Ikea, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Huawei all feature in the report. And, of course, the payments industry is taking a major interest too with Mastercard telling the FT it was examining the technology.
Being able to touch and feel the material of the clothing you are interested in, or to sit on that sofa before using AR to ‘virtually’ try it on or see what it would look like in your own home is the powerful combination that could revitalise the in-store experience.
It can also lead to very secure shopping. Once your smartphone is out capturing all those layers of data and additional features, then simply scanning a QR code on the item concerned and using facial recognition to authenticate the payment makes for a seamless retail environment.
Our patented Onescan system uses secure, encrypted QR codes to generate payments and handles all the data transactions required simply and securely. It is also fully compliant with the strictest payment regulations and authentication requirements around the world.
Onescan is also a truly omnichannel payment solution. It is as at home in the real world - where it can be triggered by a printed card, a garment tag, or by a retail payment terminal - as it is the virtual or online world - where it can be used to scan on-screen codes.
What’s more, with Onescan, there’s no app to download or special software to install. It needs just a smartphone camera to trigger fast, simple and secure mobile payments.
So if you want to know how Onescan can help your business or learn more about our encrypted, secure contactless payments with no upper limit on the payment amount, then click here.