In a virtual try-on (VTO) partnership where scale meets scale, Amazon Fashion and Snapchat have agreed to connect products with people via a new digital fitting agreement aimed at moving merchandise and reducing returns.
Starting with eyewear, the new pairing of Snap’s AR Lens filter with Amazon’s massive inventory of products is being touted as a major milestone in the evolution of social commerce through the digital enhancement of the shopping experience.
“With the combined innovation and technology between Snap and Amazon, we are unlocking exciting and fun new try-on experiences for hundreds of millions of Snapchatters,” Ben Schwerin, SVP of Partnerships at Snap said in a press release. “AR eyewear is just the first step in our partnership, and we can’t wait to continue our innovation together.”
According to the release, the pact will let customers explore, shop and digitally try on thousands of eyewear styles directly on Snapchat and then seamlessly purchase them through the Amazon Fashion store.
Mobile shopping figures centrally into the new Amazon-Snap VR linkup, with the announcement noting, “More customers are turning to mobile shopping — in the past year, Amazon Fashion customers ordered more than one billion fashion items on mobile devices.”
See also: Luxury Resale Competition Spikes as ‘What Goes Around’ Opens Amazon Storefront
To that point, Muge Erdirik Dogan, president of Amazon Fashion, added that “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.”
This all aligns with PYMNTS research on the growth of mobile commerce. Per the study “Digital Economy Payments: November 2022 U.S. Edition — The Rise Of Mobile eCommerce,” “mobile commerce, or mCommerce, is projected to account for 44% of all digital sales by 2025.”
The eCommerce giant has been busy maneuvering its Amazon Stores concept to make shopping searches more precise and using tech to improve the odds of online conversion. In October, Amazon Luxury Stores made a breakthrough as holdout brands including Chanel, Hermès and LVMH finally came to the marketplace via resale agreements with sellers, namely luxury reCommerce mainstay What Goes Around Comes Around.
Get the study: Digital Economy Payments: November 2022 U.S. Edition — The Rise Of Mobile eCommerce
A Strategy for Reducing Returns
As virtual try-on and other tech moves to monetize social audiences, one reason that eCommerce operators like the concept is to reduce a flood of returns, especially the post-holiday deluge that happens each January as unwanted gifts pour back into merchants.
For context, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported last January that “Retailers expect more than $761 billion in merchandise sold last year to be returned by consumers,” adding that the “2021 total rate of returns (16.6 percent) is up from 10.6 percent during 2020, but online returns in 2021 are in line with recent years at an average of 20.8 percent.”
Whether that 20.8% figure on eCommerce returns is a durable benchmark will be tested during what’s expected to be the most fraught holiday selling season since the market crash of 2008.
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