Top 5 Augmented Reality Virtual Try-On Examples

Giving customers the ability to virtually try products out before making purchasing decisions is becoming more relevant than ever before. With restrictions on movement and limited access to in-store experiences, brands are now actively looking to alternative methods to allow customers to demo products in real-time Augmented Reality before purchasing. Utilising web-based Augmented Reality technology means that you can offer Virtual Try-on experiences within your existing website and product pages to give customers the opportunity to get an accurate sense of the look, feel and size of your products.

Using Web AR, customers can tap to 'try on' to automatically activate their mobile device camera and demo the product, all from the comfort of their own home. This is a highly user-friendly experience, with zero app downloads required by the customer. Their user journey typically looks like this:

To give you a clear demonstration of how this can work and why giving customers an AR Virtual Try-on option increases sales, here's 5 of our favourite AR virtual try on examples.

Sephora Virtual Makeup Try on

In 2016, Sephora launched a virtual mirror to allow customers to try on different shades of eye shadow and lipstick with the touch of a button. The users face appears in real-time using the front facing camera with different colour palettes available to choose from.

Make-up is such a vast landscape of different colors that it lends itself extremely well with a virtual product try-on technology. This experience in particular used an app-based AR technology, thus restricted to only being available to users that had the app pre-downloaded to their device.

The natural progression of this technology would be a Web AR or Web-based Augmented Reality version, in which customers don’t have to download an app to try on different make up colors. Instead, they could be directed from the brands website or social media and instantly launch the experience. We haven’t come across a make-up brand doing this yet. Will you be one of the innovators in the space?

Virtual Try On Sunglasses

Taking that natural progression of app-less technology into consideration, this video example of a web-based Augmented Reality sunglasses try-on experience ticks all of the boxes. The customer is able to select their favourite frames and colors and then virtually try them on using the front facing mobile camera. This web-based Augmented Reality (Web AR) is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, and does not require the customer to leave the website to experience. Pretty impressive!

This is a very clear demonstration of a virtual try-on experience done right. The key is to avoid pandering to the gimmicks and focus on pure user-experience and ultimately, sales conversions. Placing a 'try on' button within your product pages to allow customers to get an accurate feel for the product style is an outstanding way to better engage with your customers and drive more sales.

Timberland Virtual Try On Clothing

Popular fashion wear brand Timberland created an in-store virtual try on experience in which passers by could try on clothing from their newest collection virtually.

The physical screens camera followed the person’s movement and analyzed it in real-time. When a person got close to it, the app scanned the person’s face, took a picture and looked for a good model for it. Using the 80-inch screen, the user could use gestures to change outfits. This experience also included social sharing options to share their outfit to Facebook.

Similar to the Sephora example, this was an app-based experience and was not freely available to the public. This was a great experience idea in theory, however with recent technology advancements, if Timberland were to launch a similar virtual try-on experience in 2020 they could really blow people away. Brands that focus on delivering easier access to these types of experiences using technology like Web AR will benefit greatly from increased exposure, brand awareness and ultimately, increased sales.

3D Retail Product Demonstration

An alternative example to virtual try-on experiences is the virtual product demo. This example has similar advantages to virtual try-on, yet with the ability to not just demonstrate wearables, but also demonstrate retail goods like Laptops, Fridges, TV's, Furniture and more. Customers can get an accurate idea of the look, feel and size of these products in their own-home.

Giving customers the ability to see a product in a real environment before making buying decisions is huge, and already brands like Ikea are making this available through their mobile app. Brands now see the value in giving customers a deeper level of insight into their product ranges and this laptop example is a great demonstration of this. It is also possible to display a much greater level of detail with the 3D models if required. The Aircards custom 3D design team regularly create in-depth 3D models for use within Web AR experiences.

Analytics & Performance Reporting

An extremely important benefit of deploying a WebAR experience for retail is that it comes as standard with an advanced analytics dashboard, enabling brands to accurately monitor campaign performance. All of the traditional website metrics are available, including things like views, unique users, time on page, CTRs and geo-location. In the digital age, understanding campaign performance and determining ROI is an incredibly important deciding factor when building marketing strategies and associated budgets, and WebAR is able to provide this to a high degree of granularity and accuracy.

What's next for AR and Virtual Try-On?

We're seeing an exponential rise in the use of this technology to deliver engaging shopping experiences. Consumer shopping is changing and evolving all time, especially during the current world climate. The brands that look to innovate early and capitalise on Virtual Try-on technology before their competitors do, will see the biggest impact.

Integrating web-based Augmented Reality Virtual Try-on technology with e-Commerce stores is an outstanding way to increase engagement with product pages and subsequent online sales. Aircards provide an end-to-end service for the development and deployment of web-based Augmented Reality product try-on experiences. If you're interested in using this technology for your brand, get in touch to take advantage of our free AR consultation.