Snapchat could become an augmented reality fitting room in the near future.
What was once a quirky feature of the app, is now crucial to its push into e-commerce — one that’s been bubbling away ever since AR Lenses arrived on the app in 2015. Like many trends, however, the pandemic changed the way people shop in big and small ways. Snapchat responded in kind. It grew its shoppable formats and Stores functionality during the pandemic, inviting advertisers and creators to connect their content directly to opportunities to purchase within the app.
The investments all served to make commerce on Snapchat more experiential, which is the real draw for marketers and retail bosses alike — in particular, how social commerce on the app is becoming reliant on AR. Walmart, Hollister, JD Sports, Under Armor and Coca-Cola are among a raft of businesses either running or preparing to use the app’s AR features, from shopping lenses to stores, over the key festive shopping period. Not only do they see AR on the app as a way to goose sales given that shoppers can virtually try on the merchandise before they buy, doing so potentially reduces the need to return items they don’t actually want. It’s the latter point that stands to really pique the interest of retail businesses — many of which have had to grapple with the inevitable side effect of the online sales boom: more products are getting returned.
“We’re trying to prove out a hypothesis that if you have a virtual try-on experience are you then less likely to return that item,” said Ed Couchman, the general manager for Snapchat in the U.K. So far, the business has anecdotal evidence to back this theory up. “Conversations have shifted a bit from talking about the app as a marketing and media play to how it can be used to solve wider business challenges,” said Couchman.
Agency execs can vouch for this:
“More so than at any other point, our conversations with Snapchat are moving beyond the ad platform and more about the broader e-commerce system it’s building,” said Jessica Chapplow, head of e-commerce, Havas’ retail division Havas Market. “It’s no longer enough to just understand the exposure of the ad. Increasingly, our clients want to see the tangible sales impact.”
SOURCE : Digiday
