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Strategy

Google Enhances AR Shopping Features

The online search giant has a feature that lets shoppers experience 3D-renderings of popular sneaker styles – a technology that’s becoming increasingly popular in e-commerce.

As the holiday shopping season gets into full swing, Google has added augmented reality features to make e-commerce even easier.

“There’s something special about shopping in store: the lights, the scents, the music,” wrote Danielle Buckley, Google’s director of product, consumer shopping, in a blog post. “While we can’t experience all those little details when we shop online, we’re making big improvements to AR shopping on Google to bring the most important part of the store – the product – to life.”

Google sign

The online search giant already let shoppers view furniture in their space using an AR home goods feature. But this week, Google expanded the feature to include sneakers. Online shoppers can spin the sneakers around, zoom in and see them rendered in their homes to decide if the footwear, from laces to soles, fits their personal style. Brands like Saucony, Vans and Merrell are enabled for AR viewing on Google, and the company says any brand with 3D-assets for sneakers or home goods is allowed to participate in the program. “We’re investing in new ways to create 3D spins of shoes, a process that’s usually time-consuming and expensive for brands,” Buckley wrote. “We’ll start using this technology in the coming months.”

According to Marketing Dive: “The company is training machine learning to be able to assemble interactive virtual assets from just a few images versus relying on hundreds of photos.” Google’s research shows that customers engage with 3D-imagery 50% more than static photography.

E-commerce is increasingly turning to AR to enhance the shopping experience, both at retail and in the promotional products world. Pinterest, for example, has a shopping feature that lets people try out various pieces of furniture using their smartphones. Earlier this year, Montreal-based Spector & Co. (asi/88660) launched what it called “Spector Vision,” which allows people to place a 3D-rendered version of select drinkware in their own homes via smartphone, as a way to cut down on the need for physical samples. Raphael Menesclou of DataHawk noted in a Q&A this spring that more and more brands are using AR “because this deeply experiential technology does, in fact, increase product sales.”