Dive Brief:
- In the growing list of Snapchat retail partners, Amazon Fashion and Snapchat have teamed up to introduce eyewear virtual try-on for customers and brands, according to an announcement emailed to Retail Dive.
- Among the eyewear brands available to try are Maui Jim, Persol, Oakley and Costa Del Mar. Amazon’s 3D asset technology and Snap’s Lenses help shoppers visualize their eyewear purchases and find product details and availability, the company said.
- Amazon Fashion’s shopping lenses will be available on its public profile on Snapchat, within Snap’s Lens Explorer tool under the For You and Dress Up tabs and in the Snap Camera Lens Carousel. Once shoppers find a product they like, they can click a link to purchase the eyewear in the Amazon Fashion store.
Dive Insight:
Amazon's customers have ordered over one billion fashion items via mobile devices in the past year. By partnering with Snapchat, the retailer has access to its 363 million active users, per the announcement.
“Amazon Fashion is always looking for new ways to collaborate with brands and create fun, innovative shopping experiences for customers,” Muge Erdirik Dogan, president of Amazon Fashion, said in a statement. “Millions of customers regularly use Amazon’s AR shopping technology across categories in our stores, with Virtual Try-On for Eyewear being a long-time customer favorite. We are delighted to partner with Snapchat and further expand AR shopping for both fashion brands and today’s new generation of digital shoppers.”
Before Amazon rolled out its AR try-on feature with Snapchat, the e-commerce giant introduced a similar feature for shoes. In June, Amazon launched its augmented reality shopping tool for shoes from brands like Adidas, New Balance, Puma and Reebok within the Amazon Shopping app. In December 2020, the company experimented with other virtual fitting technology to create custom shirts through its “Made for You” sales portal.
Snapchat, for its part, has been enhancing its augmented reality features to attract brands and enable shoppers to test products before buying them. In May, the social network released several AR tools to help brands use its technology within their own applications, create augmented reality assets and add their product catalogs for shoppers. The social media app in June released a survey it commissioned from Alter Agents that found that 80% of survey respondents felt more confident when they used AR tools to visualize products before buying them.
Brands and retailers like Walmart, American Eagle, Gucci and MAC Cosmetics have used the social platform’s lenses to allow shoppers to try and buy make-up, shoes and clothing, among other purposes. Ahead of Halloween, Snapchat partnered with Disguise to let shoppers try on Halloween costumes within the app from franchises like “Harry Potter.”
The AR eyewear feature with Amazon, which Snap’s Senior Vice President of Partnerships Ben Schwerin said was “just the first step in our partnership,” comes as the social media giant faces financial difficulties. While its Q3 revenue rose 6% to $1.13 billion, its net loss increased from $72 million in the year-ago quarter to $360 million. Its operating cash flow was also down from $72 million last year to $56 million this year, according to its latest earnings report.
