Just Try it On | Beauty Begins with u.
Have you ever see “try it on” feature on any beauty or clothes shopping websites? Did you used it? Are you Familiar with “Augmented Reality”?
Here it is…
When I searched for Shiseido’s competitors, I chose Bobbi Brown which belongs to the Estee Launder Company for this week’s discussion. I’m familiar with Bobbi Brown, and I personally like a few of its products. For example, its cleansing oil, its eye shadow (Moonshadow), its pressed powder… I also heard of the “vitamin enriched face base” as a good primer before foundation.
A good impression for the brand.
While surfing on Bobbi Brown’s website, I found out a category called “Virtual Services”. Except “virtual consultations” which you can book an appointment online and “How to” which you can get some tips about makeup, I focused on the “Virtually Try-on”. This is a feature related to “Augmented Reality” which refers to an interactive experience of a real-world environment. Virtually try-on technology has been applied to many online shopping platforms now. It enables customers to try on products using their cameras or uploading photos.
For Bobbi Brown’s try-on, customers can see a small tag “try it on” above a product. There’re various products with this function, including lipsticks, eyeliners, eye shadow…
When you select a product with “try it on” function, there’re choices: live camera, upload a photo, or choose a model. These inclusive choices concern with customers who want to see herself in live camera, or who’re shy to use camera but want see the products on herself, or who don’t have appropriate photos but want to see the colors on a similar person.
I clicked on “choose a model”. There were five models, including different races and colors. It’s good. However, they were all female models. I’m thinking of if it’s needed to include male models to help with men who like makeup as well…
Take an example of trying a liquid lipstick, I chose a model with a similar Asian face. There was a small icon on the right side of the model, it helped me to see the difference with or without the lipstick. I tried all the colors and found out a preferred one “Juicy Date”, a pinkish brown color.
For me, I actually enjoyed the process for trying on the products and different colors. I felt that this function enhanced customers satisfaction with the brand and get them more familiar with its products.
I was amazed that eyeliner had “try it on” function too…
You can see different eyeliner colors and how it fits with your eyes shapes and eye shadow colors. I still selected the model with an Asian face to try it on. With comparison, I saw how different a person’s makeup looked like with eyeliner.
“Beauty Begins With You” is the vision of Bobbi Brown and what the brand insists. I think that “try it on” function helps with its vision and objectives to give customers confidence and find out their true beauty. This function as a digital service enables customers to see its products in a real-world environment so that they better know which one fits with them. By this way, customers are more likely to choose Bobbi Brown cosmetics. Consideration and Loyalty will be enhanced as well.
I think this trend will NOT fade away because it makes customer purchasing process easier and more convenient. A feature which meets customers needs can boost sales & revenues and thus should be kept.
