Augmented Reality vs. Virtual Showroom: Main Differences

Immersive technologies are transforming how customers explore and buy products online. In 2025, the AR market alone is valued at $149.57 billion and it’s projected to reach $2.8 trillion by 2034.

Over 60% of customers now expect to experience products before they buy—virtually trying on sneakers, or walking through a fully digital showroom to explore how furniture sets look and fit together in a room.

To meet these expectations, brands are turning to Augmented Reality and Virtual Showrooms. Understanding which fits your goals is key for increasing engagement, boosting sales, and reducing returns.

In this article, we’ll explore how AR and Virtual Showrooms work, show real-world examples, and help you decide which solution is right for your brand.

TL;DR – AR vs. Virtual Showroom at a Glance

• Environment: AR overlies the real world with digital content. A Virtual Showroom is a completely digital world.
• Interaction: AR is about contextual, single-product interaction in a user's real space. A Virtual Showroom offers guided, interactive exploration of multiple products.
• Accessibility: AR can be experienced on smartphones, tablets, and AR glasses. Virtual Showrooms can be accessed via desktop computers, smartphones, tablets, VR headsets, or AR glasses depending on the type of experience.
• Best Use Cases: AR is perfect for "try-before-you-buy" scenarios. Virtual Showrooms excel in multi-product visualization, room redesigns, and immersive branded experiences.

What Is Augmented Reality (AR)?

Plain-Language Definition

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that overlays digital content like images, videos, or 3D models onto the real world through a smartphone, tablet, or AR glasses.

Signature AR interactions

AR experiences are defined by how users interact with digital content in their physical space. Key interactions include:

• Tap-to-place. Users can tap on a surface to “place” a 3D model, such as a piece of furniture, in their space.

• Try-on. Using a front-facing camera, a user can virtually try products like sunglasses, watches, or makeup.

Required Devices and Accessibility

The widespread adoption of AR is largely due to its accessibility. Most AR experiences run directly on smartphones and tablets, powered by native platforms like Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore. Over 1.4 billion devices worldwide already support these technologies, making AR instantly available to a massive audience.

While AR glasses can provide deeper immersion, they remain niche (e.g. in gaming, education, or healthcare). Consumer AR is primarily mobile-first: simple for users, and easily scalable for brands.

Real-world examples

IKEA Place app allows shoppers to virtually place IKEA furniture and décor in their own homes using a smartphone or tablet camera. Designed for single-product visualization, it enables customers to instantly assess how an item fits, matches, and scales within their real space. By giving shoppers greater confidence in their choices, the app helped IKEA reduce overall return rates by 20% and a 35% increase in online sales.

Sephora Virtual Artist App lets customers test makeup products through their device’s camera. It offers a fast, interactive way to explore multiple shades without any mess or commitment, helping shoppers avoid picking the wrong color and make smarter purchase decisions. As a result, Sephora saw a 20% decrease in basket drop rate and a 51% boost in conversions.

What Is a Virtual Showroom?

A virtual showroom is a fully digital, immersive environment designed for showcasing and selling products online. Unlike AR, which overlays individual products onto the real world, a Virtual Showroom lets customers explore complete spaces, interact with multiple items, and experience a brand in a fully controlled digital setting. 

Types of Virtual Showrooms

AR Showroom

• Description: A digital space where shoppers can preview products in realistic contexts before buying.
• Features / Capabilities: Using pre-designed scenes and 3D models, users can explore a catalog, interact with items, and customize or rotate them in 360°. Many AR showrooms also include a “View in AR” feature, letting customers project products into their own spaces.
• Accessibility: Accessible on desktop, mobile, or tablet.
• Business Value: Lowers size/fit returns for single-item purchases and improves ad CTR and ad-to-purchase ROI for SKUs through “View in AR”.

VR Showroom

• Description: A fully immersive digital space that replicates or reimagines a physical showroom. Unlike AR, it provides complete digital immersion rather than overlaying objects on the real world.
• Features / Capabilities: Shoppers can walk through the space, explore products at true scale, and customize them in real time. The environment can be a photorealistic digital twin of an existing store or a custom-designed 3D setting for brand storytelling.
• Accessibility: Accessible via web browsers or VR headsets like Meta Quest and HTC Vive.
• Business Value: Creates deep brand engagement, serves as a high-impact showroom for remote wholesale/trade presentations and virtual events, drives longer session times and stronger lead capture (virtual hosts, guided tours, contact capture for follow-up sales).   

AI-based Showroom

• Description: AI-powered showrooms transform a photo of a customer’s space into a fully interactive 3D environment. Unlike AR, which overlays individual products in the real world, AI-based showrooms recreate the entire room digitally to allow multi-product visualization and customization.
• Features / Capabilities: The system analyzes the photo to detect room layout, dimensions, and existing furniture, enabling users to add, remove, or rearrange products from a brand’s catalog. Shoppers can see exactly how items fit together and personalize colors, materials, and finishes.
• Accessibility: Accessible on desktop, mobile, or tablet.
• Business Value: Increases AOV and multi-SKU attach rate by letting users plan full-room setup, reduces returns from style/compatibility mismatches by previewing products in a digital twin of their room, captures first-party data on style/layout/room type to improve personalization and inventory planning, boosts conversion and retention for multi-item/configurable orders.

Real-world examples

Toyota’s AR showroom lets customers  explore the latest car models interactively online. Shoppers can take 3D tours, customize colors and features, and virtually inspect interiors and exteriors in 360°. With the “View in AR” feature, users can place a car directly in their garage to check size and fit. 

Benefit: By combining digital exploration with real-world context, Toyota’s AR showroom reduces the need for in-person visits, shortens the sales cycle, and improves lead quality for dealerships.

H&M’s VR showroom simulates the in-store experience in a fully immersive digital environment. New collections are presented with photorealistic 3D fabrics, detailed textures, and lifelike animations that show how materials move. Media, influencers, and stylists worldwide can explore pieces, examine details up close, and interact with products in real time.

Benefit: Reduces event and sample costs, enables global collection launches without logistics, accelerates PR coverage, and provides measurable insights into buyer and influencer interest.

Zolak’s AI-powered showroom helps furniture retailers deliver immersive, personalized shopping experiences directly on their websites. Customers can explore pre-designed interiors using your 3D product models, or scan their own rooms to arrange and customize catalog items with different finishes, colors, and materials (turning their space into a personal virtual showroom).

Benefit: Increases average order value through cross-selling in virtual rooms, shortens the purchase cycle by giving shoppers immediate visual confirmation of fit/style/layout, lowers showroom and logistics costs by reducing the need for physical space and shipping of sample products.

AR vs. Virtual Showroom: Side-by-Side Comparison

How to Choose the Right Experience for Your Brand

Choosing between AR and a Virtual Showroom depends on your product type, goals, and how you want to connect with your audience.

1. Consider Your Product Type

• AR for single-product visualization. Use when your product benefits from being seen in the customer’s own environment or “tried on.” Ideal for personal, individual purchase decisions.
• Virtual Showroom for multi-product visualization. Use to showcase full sets, illustrate real-life proportions, or present complete interiors. Ideal for decisions involving multiple items or entire collections.

2. Know Your Audience and Devices

• AR for mobile-first audiences. Research shows that 92% of Gen Z want to use AR for shopping, expecting fast, interactive “try-before-you-buy” experiences directly on their smartphones.
• Virtual Showroom for desktop or large-screen users. Best for audiences who value detail and scale, such as premium buyers, B2B clients, interior designers, or international customers.

3. Combine Both for Maximum Impact and Full-Funnel Customer Journey

To maximize engagement and conversions, use AR and Virtual Showrooms together to cover the full customer journey.

• AR: Consideration and Evaluation phases. AR provides a quick, low-friction way for shoppers to “try on” individual products in their own space. Users can test size, color, and style on one item then move to another product page and repeat the process. Each session is short and focused, enabling shoppers to validate critical hypotheses: fit, proportion, and compatibility.  
• Virtual Showroom: Brand Experience and Purchase phases. In contrast, the Virtual Showroom delivers an immersive, curated environment with controlled styling, atmosphere, and storytelling. Customers can explore multiple products in a single session, configure complex items, or consult a designer. Longer sessions allow full brand engagement, finalizing selections and combinations, reducing purchase barriers, and encouraging multi-item purchases.

Placement Recommendations

• AR: Single-SKU product pages, quick-view features, and mobile product cards.
• Virtual Showroom: Сollection pages, category pages, inspiration pages, and landing pages.

Business Rules

• AR: Reduce uncertainty for single items and boost SKU-level conversion.

• Virtual Showroom: Drive sales of sets, increase average order value (AOV), and support cross-sell journeys. 

Conclusion

AR and Virtual Showrooms are complementary, must-have tools for brands that want to win customers in 2025. AR removes hesitation around single products, helping shoppers see fit, size, and style in their own environment. Virtual Showrooms showcase collections, inspire cross-selling, and create memorable brand experiences. Together, they map perfectly onto the entire customer journey—from first consideration to confident purchase.

Instead of choosing one or trying to stitch together separate tools, brands can now have both in a single platform. That’s what Zolak delivers.

Zolak Augmented Reality. Our AR goes beyond simple product placement. Customers can customize colors, styles, and finishes directly within a single scene, and instantly see how a product fits into their real environment.

Zolak Virtual Showroom. A fully immersive digital space lets customers explore full collections, walk through pre-designed interiors, and customize items in real time (swap, delete, rotate, zoom, and change colors or textures). Shoppers can see how multiple products fit together, build inspiration, and make multi-item purchase decisions. 

By combining both, Zolak helps brands deliver end-to-end shopping experiences with measurable impact: 5x higher engagement, 57% conversion, and 40% fewer returns.

Book a demo today and see how Zolak can transform your customer experience.