3D for e-commerce5 min read

Augmented reality e-commerce statistics, with a primary source for every number

A short statistics page. Every figure links to the organisation that published it, with the date and the method, and nothing is taken from vendor roundups.

By CharpstAR · 4 Oct 2023 · Updated 22 Sept 2026

Part of Augmented reality for furniture retail: the complete guide

OCT2023

Augmented reality e-commerce statistics, with a primary source for every number

Most AR statistics pages are copies of each other. A number gets published once, gets quoted without its date, gets re-quoted with the date dropped and the figure rounded up, and five years later it is in every deck with no traceable origin. This page is the opposite exercise. Every figure below comes from a source we opened and read. Where the source is a vendor or a platform reporting on itself, we say so, because that changes how much weight the number carries.

If a statistic you expected is missing, it is because we could not find a primary source for it.

Returns

Figure	What it covers	Source and date
743 billion dollars	Total value of US retail returns	NRF and Appriss Retail, 2023
14.5 percent	Returns as a share of total US retail sales	NRF and Appriss Retail, 2023
17.6 percent	Online return rate, worth 247 billion dollars	NRF and Appriss Retail, 2023
10.02 percent	Brick and mortar return rate, worth 371 billion dollars	NRF and Appriss Retail, 2023

A methodology note that most citations omit: the NRF's 2023 report draws on returns data from 60 of the top 100 US retailers, and the NRF states that a methodology change means the 2023 figures cannot be compared directly with its 2022 report. Anyone showing you a year-over-year trend line built from those two reports is showing you an artefact.

Cart abandonment

Figure	What it covers	Source
70.22 percent	Average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate	Baymard Institute, meta-analysis of 50 studies

Baymard is the strongest source in this article because it aggregates 50 separate studies rather than reporting one company's data. Its breakdown of stated reasons for abandonment is worth reading in full; the largest single cause, setting aside browsing with no intent to buy, is extra costs at checkout at 40 percent.

Conversion and merchant results

These all come from Shopify reporting on merchants using its own 3D and AR features. They are real results from named companies, and they are also a platform publishing numbers that make its product look good. Both things are true.

Figure	What it covers	Source and date
94 percent	Higher conversion for products with 3D or AR content than comparable products without	Shopify, September 2020
65 percent	Rebecca Minkoff shoppers viewing a product in AR more likely to purchase	Shopify
44 percent	Rebecca Minkoff shoppers interacting with a 3D model more likely to add to cart	Shopify
27 percent	Rebecca Minkoff shoppers more likely to place an order after 3D interaction	Shopify
5 percent	Gunner Kennels reduction in return rate after adding AR	Shopify

The crucial caveat on all five: these compare shoppers who used the feature against shoppers who did not, on sites that chose to add it. That is not a controlled test, and the true effect is smaller than the headline.

Shopper behaviour

From Shopify's AR article, which attributes each of these to a named research firm.

Figure	What it covers	Attributed to
58 percent	Customers who use AR before making a purchase	Clutch, 2026
61 percent	AR users accessing it on a mobile device	Clutch
52 percent	Shoppers who prefer in-person shopping because they want to experience products firsthand	Chatmeter, 2025
54 percent	Glasses shoppers uncertain about buying online who wanted to check frame fit	Fittingbox, 2025
29 percent	Glasses shoppers who have used virtual try-on at least once	Fittingbox, 2025

Survey figures about AR usage are the softest category on this page. "Have you used AR before a purchase" is a question many respondents answer inconsistently, because a Snapchat filter and a furniture placement tool both count.

Cost

Figure	What it covers	Source
30,000 to 50,000 dollars	Custom AR app with basic functionality	Shopify
Up to 300,000 dollars	Complex custom AR app	Shopify
From about 39 dollars per month	Prebuilt AR apps	Shopify

For comparison, our own pricing runs from 10 dollars per product per month on Basic, twelve-month term with a minimum of 100 variants, and from 20 dollars per model per month on Value with a twenty-four month term.

Platform facts, which need no survey

These are not statistics, they are documented platform behaviour, and they are more decisive than most of the numbers above.

Android AR from a web link works on ARCore devices running Android 7.0 or later, through Google's Scene Viewer, with no app install.
iPhone and iPad AR from Safari works on iOS 12 and later through AR Quick Look, using USDZ files.
Google recommends models under 10 MB and below 100,000 triangles for Scene Viewer, with 30,000 to 50,000 ideal.

What we deliberately left out

Global AR market size forecasts, "percentage of retailers planning to adopt AR by 2027" numbers, and any statistic whose only traceable origin is another blog post. If you see a number in this field with no date and no named research organisation, assume it started life as an estimate in a slide deck.

The most useful statistic for your business is one you generate yourself. We build the first 3D model for free so you can put it on a page and get that number. Send us a product, or read about what we build.