Snap enters the enterprise space with AR, announces retail customers

Snap has launched its AR Enterprise Services (ARES), a new enterprise solution to enable businesses to integrate Snap’s Augmented Reality (AR) into their owned and operated channels with ease and at scale. 

Through this offering, Snap promises that consumers will enjoy immersive and personalised experiences with their favorite brands, with a suite of advanced tools designed to increase confidence in their purchases.

ARES’ inaugural offering is for retail, and among the first group of customers are Goodr, Princess Polly, and Gobi Cashmere. Each of these companies have been using various products from Fit Finder to AR Try-On, which are features that make up our new Shopping Suite.

Jill Popelka, head of Snap’s AR Enterprise Services, said that over the last decade, they’ve been hard at work bringing fun and personal AR experiences to Snapchatters. 

“In the next decade, we’re excited to take our world-class AR technology to businesses’ websites, apps, and even into their physical locations,” Popelka said. “We look forward to making the shopping experience more delightful for consumers and transforming businesses around the world with AR Enterprise Services.”

ARES unifies Snap’s world-class AR technology with technologies from Snap’s acquisitions of Vertebrae, Fit Analytics, and Forma over the last two years, which built the groundwork for Snap’s AR enterprise offering.

The Shopping Suite is ARES’ first solution, a suite of products and services which provides 3D Viewer, AR Try-On, and Fit Finder, embedded directly inside retailers’ own apps and websites. 

ARES’ Shopping Suite will be widely available to customers in during this second quarter and includes AR shopping for apparel, footwear, and accessories. 

Shopping Suite also includes dedicated services and support. Businesses can leverage dedicated services for AR asset creation and robust technical implementation support. 

The Shopping Suite’s AR asset creation services help businesses create digital versions of their apparel, footwear, and eyewear products using proprietary photogrammetry hardware and machine learning creation pipelines to deliver high fidelity assets optimised for end user performance.

It also has enterprise tools to manage assets and integrations. Businesses can manage and optimise their AR assets and integrations, measure performance analytics, and receive dedicated Shopping Suite support.

Further, businesses can integrate the AR Try-On, Fit Finder, and interactive 3D Viewer technology into their own apps and websites, promising shoppers the ability to receive accurate fit and sizing recommendations, try-on or view products in augmented reality, and interact with products in 3D.

ARES is already seeing promising results from early customers using Shopping Suite features, who are making the shopping experience frictionless and personal.

Goodr leveraged AR Try-On and interactive 3D Viewer technology to replicate the experience of in-store shopping on customers’ mobile devices and saw an 81% uplift in add-to-cart and 67% uplift in conversion for mobile device users, leading to a 59% increase in revenue per visitor. 

Princess Polly incorporated Fit Finder and AR Try-On features to deliver recommendations to over 7.5 million shoppers who had a 24% reduced return rate than shoppers not using the technology.

Gobi Cashmere’s conversion rate was four times higher for shoppers using Fit Finder recommendations and AR Try-On features, helping provide personalized experiences to one in every four shoppers.