How augmented reality changes shopping behaviour

It is easy to say that augmented reality changes how people shop and much harder to show it. Most articles on the subject describe a feeling. This one looks at what a shopper does differently on a product page with a 3D model and an AR button, and which of those changes show up in numbers you can check.

We build 3D models and web AR for furniture, stoves and home products, so we have an interest in the result. For that reason every number below is linked to its source.

Shoppers rotate the model first

Rotation is the most reliable change, and it gets little attention. When a 3D viewer is on the page, a large share of the people who scroll to it will drag it around. It costs the shopper nothing, with no permission prompt, no app and no camera, and it answers questions that photos leave open: what the back looks like, how thick the frame is, where the seams are, which side the cable comes out of.

It happens on desktop too. AR placement is something people do on phones, while rotation works everywhere, and on most of the pages we work on it is by far the more common interaction. If your AR budget treats the 3D viewer as a side effect, the priorities are the wrong way round.

Shoppers check the size

Dimension checking comes next. A 3D model with dimension lines makes a spec table readable at a glance. A width in centimetres means little to most shoppers until it is drawn across the object.

On phones, AR places the model at true scale in the room, so the question changes from "is 212 cm too wide" to "does it fit between the window and the door". People can answer that in ten seconds standing in the room, and it is one of the most common reasons our clients' customers open AR.

More add to cart and more orders

The evidence here is public. Shopify reported in 2020 that interactions with products carrying 3D or AR content converted 94 percent more often than the same kind of products without. That figure compares product interactions and does not come from a controlled trial. It almost certainly includes a selection effect too, since merchants tend to make 3D models of their better products. Use it as a strong signal and keep it out of your forecasts.

The Rebecca Minkoff numbers Shopify published are more detailed and more useful. Shoppers were 44 percent more likely to add an item to their cart after interacting with it in 3D, 27 percent more likely to place an order after doing so, and the AR-enabled product pages saw a 65 percent purchase lift.

Shoppers return to the page before buying

Rotation and AR placement give people a reason to come back. They send the link to a partner, open it again in the room they are furnishing, and place the model a second time against another wall. In client analytics this shows up as repeat sessions on the same product URL before purchase. That fits a considered purchase, where the product page is used to make the decision.

This is also why sharing is easy to misread. An AR screenshot sent to a partner reaches very few new people. It helps a household agree on a purchase, so it counts towards conversion and brings in few new visitors.

Fewer returns for products that have to fit a space

Returns are where overclaiming is most tempting. The National Retail Federation put United States returns at 743 billion dollars in 2023, 14.5 percent of sales, with online at 17.6 percent. With numbers that large, even a small improvement is worth money.

The published AR figure worth citing is modest. Shopify reported that Gunner Kennels reduced return rates by 5 percent after adding AR. That is 5 percent of the return rate, which is far less than five percentage points and nowhere near half. AR only prevents the returns that come from a product being the wrong size or scale for the space. Returns caused by colour drift, quality disappointment, late delivery or a shopper who ordered three variants to keep one are unaffected.

3D and AR reduce one part of returns, and that part is largest in furniture, appliances, lighting and anything else that has to fit somewhere.

What stays the same

Two things stay stubbornly the same. Shoppers who were never going to buy still don't, and a 3D model won't fix a page with no stock information, no delivery date and no clear return policy. AR gives shoppers better information, so they make more accurate decisions. It does not create demand where there is none or make up for a product page that is missing the basics.

The share of people who use AR at all also stays low. On most of the pages we see, only a minority of mobile shoppers place the model in AR, while most people who reach the viewer rotate it. Plan your investment around what most people do.

Setting up your product page

Put the 3D viewer above the fold on mobile or directly below the main image, where people see it without opening a tab. Add dimension lines to the model so size checking works without AR. Keep the AR button visible but secondary. Then measure rotation rate, AR open rate and the conversion difference between sessions that interacted and sessions that did not, and compare against your own baseline instead of the numbers in this article.

Our own clients have done this. Sweef put a modular sofa into a configurator that customers can place in their rooms. Contura lets people put a wood-burning stove in a living room at real size before committing. MELIMELI uses the same models across the shop and their campaign material.

To see what your own shoppers do with a model, we will build a 3D model of one of your products for free so you can put it live and measure it. Send us one product and the model is yours to keep. Details of what we build and what it costs after that are on solutions and prices.

Sources

• Shopify, merchant data on 3D and AR content, September 2020.
• Shopify, AR shopping: Rebecca Minkoff and Gunner Kennels results.
• Shopify, 3D e-commerce.
• National Retail Federation and Appriss Retail, 2023 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry.