At Snap, we are reimagining the shopping experience to be personal, accessible and fun, through augmented reality. Since January of last year, more than 250 million Snapchatters have engaged with AR shopping Lenses more than 5 billion times – trying on and visualising products from brands and retailers around the world. They rank Snapchat the #1 platform for sharing shopping moments.
Our brand partners are using Snap’s camera capabilities to engage their audience and transform businesses of all sizes. For example, Zenni Optical’s AR lenses, which used our true-to-size eyewear Lens technology, have been tried on over 60 million times by Snapchatters and drove a 42% higher return on ad spend compared to Lenses without.
Today, we are continuing to evolve AR shopping by launching a suite of new offerings making AR creation simple, fast and cost-effective for businesses. And, we are offering consumers new places to shop using AR, both on and off Snapchat.
New AR Creation Suite
Snap’s 3D Asset Manager is a web content management platform that makes it easy for businesses to request, approve and optimise 3D models – for any product in their shopping product catalogue. And through asset sharing capabilities, retailers and brands can utilise approved 3D models from well-known brands already in Snap’s asset management system.
Partners can also use our new AR Image Processing technology. Developed by Forma, this capability allows businesses to use existing product photos they have produced for their e-commerce websites and transform them into turnkey AR-ready assets for Snapchat AR try-on Lens experiences. Through this technology, shoppers can try on even more outfits more easily, from the comfort of their own home, simply by taking a full body selfie.
Step 1: Partners upload their existing product photography for product SKUs they currently sell on their websites.
Step 2: Product photography is processed with a deep-learning module that transforms the retailer’s photos into AR image assets.
Step 3: Businesses can then select SKUs with AR image assets to create try-on Lenses using new templates in a simple web interface.
Snap’s new AR shopping templates in Lens Web Builder also make it fast and free for brands to import their assets and create catalogue-shopping Lenses in minutes, with no AR development skills needed. Available today in a beta for select partners, apparel, eyewear and footwear brands can join beauty merchants in building virtual try-on and visualisation experiences using their AR-ready assets. We are also expanding into surface objects for categories like furniture and handbags, where our new template enables any 3D model to be placed on the floor or table top, allowing Snapchatters to explore items in more detail or see how it fits in their space.
These three new technologies enable businesses of all sizes to create AR Shopping experiences quickly and easily – bringing personalised, immersive shopping opportunities to shoppers.
Dress Up
Snapchatters love using AR for shopping, so we’re unveiling a new, dedicated destination on Snapchat called Dress Up. Dress Up brings together the best of AR fashion and try-on experiences from creators, retailers and fashion brands, all in one place.
Available in Lens Explorer, and soon just one tap away from the camera in the AR bar, Dress Up invites our community to browse, discover and share new looks from around the world. Snapchatters can also easily return to the outfits and accessories they love by navigating a new shopping section within their profile where they can locate products they have favourited, recently viewed and added to their basket. Any brand’s lenses will be considered for Dress Up if they’re available on their brand profile.
Camera Kit for AR Shopping
Finally, Camera Kit for AR Shopping is a new offering for businesses to bring the Snap Camera and AR try-on to their own applications.
This SDK brings catalogue-powered shopping Lenses into retailers and brands’ product detail pages, so any customer can use Snap AR to try on or visualise products, like eyewear or handbags, directly from their owned and operated applications. Camera Kit for AR Shopping works across Android and iOS, and will soon work on websites too.
Puma is Snap’s first global brand partner to use the technology. Shoppers will be able to digitally try-on Puma trainers, all powered by Snap’s Camera Kit.
Shopping on and off Snapchat is incredibly easy and fun for both brands and shoppers. We can’t wait for people everywhere to try these new experiences on for size!