Dr. Sherif Fakhri Muhammad Abdel-Nabi, President of the Egyptian-Russian University in Cairo, Badr City, stressed that scientific research in the different faculties of the university is an important element in the university’s vision and mission and its impact on society. He further stressed that the state’s sustainable development goals are linked to advanced technology and research plans and priorities within the university campus. He pointed out that the university attaches great importance to the fields of scientific research based on community service, especially concerning modern technologies and artificial intelligence.

In this context, researcher Dr. Mona Moussa, the business administration lecturer at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Business Technology at the Egyptian-Russian University in Cairo, participated in a research study that investigates the importance of augmented reality (AR) technology in the electronic marketing of the online retail sector in Egypt. She noted that the study was under the direction of Dr. Al Tahera Al Sayed Hameyah, Dean of the Faculty, to conduct a study on the customer experience concerning the relationship between AR and the intention to buy at COVID-19 times.

Researcher Dr. Mona Moussa added that in the times of COVID-19, fear of infection and policies imposed by governments forced people to spend most of their time online, and online shopping became the only alternative to meeting their needs. She explained that technology has played a major role in the development of online shopping practices, where customers can switch to another competitor with only one click. Therefore, companies have to provide their customers with unique virtual experiences designed specifically for them, if they intend to develop themselves to increase their sales in new ways.

The business administration lecturer at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Business Technology at the university pointed out that AR as a fun technology can attract the attention of customers and provide them with a rich experience, with more visual and detailed information, as well as allowing them to experience products through virtual layers without the need to go to places to sell them. She revealed that AR helps customers feel less uncertain when shopping online and better assess products. In addition, AR as an interactive technology increases the interaction between consumers and brands, providing customers with an attractive imaginative experience that significantly impacts their purchasing decisions.

Researcher Dr. Mona Moussa further pointed out that this research aims to study the impact of AR in creating the customer experience and the intention to buy from the perspective of online shoppers in “Egypt” in times of COVID-19. The research adopted the quantitative research methodology and collected preliminary data through an online questionnaire targeting the customers of one of the major international stores in Egypt, based on appropriate sampling and data analysis. The results of the current study concluded that there is a positive relationship between both AR and customer experience and purchasing intention, in addition to the impact of the customer experience as a median variable in the relationship between AR and purchasing intention. Furthermore, the model has a high ability to predict the consumer’s purchasing intention through AR and customer experience. The study recommended that online retailers rely on AR as a technology that can create an unforgettable customer experience and increase purchasing intention.

According to the business administration teacher at the university’s Faculty of Management, Economics and Business Technology, the difference between AR and virtual reality (VR) is as follows:

– AR is the technology based on the inclusion of virtual objects, information, and effects to the real environment that we live in using smartphones. Therefore, it adds a fictional sense to this environment turning it into a new reality. So, this technology cannot deal with places that do not exist in reality.

– VR is the technology based on the inclusion of real objects into the virtual user environment using VR glasses. Therefore, it gives you the experience of living in a digital reality built using a computer, a 3D world in which things look similar to their real forms that you know and is used mainly in 3D films and video games in addition to the fields of education, medicine, and the military. So, the main difference between AR and VR is that in VR the person is in another imaginative world, while in AR the person is in his/her real world with some virtual objects, information, and effects added to it.