Snap opens up its AR tools to retailers and enterprise businesses

Snap Inc., the company behind the video-messaging app Snapchat, today announced it’s launching a new division that will offer its augmented reality solutions to retailers and businesses so they can integrate them into their apps.

Augmented Reality Solutions for Business, or ARES, will allow businesses to adapt Snap’s AR features for their apps and websites in order to help them to attract customers and build more immersive experiences.

Snapchat is already well-known for augmented reality experiences, which allow users to view computer-generated content overlaid on the real world. Using this technology, users can change their faces, add cartoon characters to their videos and more. The company said more than 250 million people in the world use these AR capabilities in its apps daily.

The first features available for ARES will be for retailers, called “Shopping Suite,” which will include such capabilities as helping users virtually try on clothing, determine fit and view products in 3D.

With access to these powerful tools, retailers will be able to more easily sell clothing and other items to their customers by giving them the ability not just to view products, but to experience them virtually through web and mobile.

“Over the last decade, we’ve been hard at work bringing fun and personal AR experiences to Snapchatters,” said Jill Popelka, head of ARES at Snap. “In the next decade, we’re excited to take our world-class AR technology to businesses’ websites, apps and even into their physical locations.”

The first feature available to retailers is Fit Finder, which provides clothing size and fit recommendations driven by artificial intelligence to shoppers. It can recognize shopping patterns and delivering better and more personalized fit for shoppers based on what they’ve bought in the past so that they can feel more comfortable about what they purchase – since not all brands fit quite the same.

Snap is also offering a virtual Clothing Try-On that will take into account the contours, shape and unique body type of the shopper using AR. Shoppers upload a photo of themselves and then they can see how the clothing or product will look when they are wearing it using this feature – or users can select models that are similar to their own features.

It works with established product photography, so users can also get a look at what eye wear and footwear will look like on their faces and feet directly within the app using virtual try-on. This feature has seen use in a partnership between Amazon.com Inc. and Snap that allowed users to try on different eyeglass brands within Amazon Fashion.

Brands will also be able to use a 3D Viewer allowing shoppers to fully visualize a product without the need to click through a series of images. That way they can get a more detailed view of something like sneakers or pottery or plush toy, and turn it around with their virtual hands in an app. As a result, they can get a look at the entire item more like they would if they were at a brick-and-mortar store, where they can put their hands on it.

These features are drawn from a number of acquisitions that Snap has made over the past two years, including 3D modeling company Vertebrae, Fit Analytics and Forma.

Among the first customers to use the ARES suite of tools will be women’s clothing and fashion retailer Princess Polly Online, sunglass outfit Goodr and Mongolian manufacturer Gobi Cashmere. Snap said that after retailers incorporated the AR tools, their customers experienced more conversions and less returns.

“Implementing Snap’s Shopping Suite, particularly AR Try-On and 3D Viewer, resulted in overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers and a considerable uptick in sales, closing the gap between what our customers expect their Goodrs to look like and how they actually look,” said Stephen Lease, Goodr’s co-founder and chief executive.

Image: Snap