With eCommerce on the rise, Pinterest is looking to facilitate more capability in assessing and comparing products, with the expansion of its AR ‘Try On’ tools to better replicate the in-store shopping experience.

After launching its lipstick Try on Pins with selected brands early last year, Pinterest is now expanding its AR overlays into eyeshadow as well, with new, shoppable eyeshadow Pins showcasing products from Lancome, YSL, Urban Decay, and NYX Cosmetics. 

As explained by Pinterest:

“With eyeshadow Try on, powered by Lens, Pinners can tap into visual search and AR technology to try on and shop beauty products right from the camera on their phone. Simply click the camera icon in ‘Search’ and start browsing different shades of eyeshadow, try on in-stock shades, and purchase products.”

As you test out different shades, Pinterest will highlight relevant Pins to match your choices, helping you find the right product aligned with your look.

The new eyeshadow Try On pins can also be viewed in conjunction with the existing lipstick Try On tools, so you can test out variations of both make-up types within the same process (you can see this in the second image above).

Pinterest says that the new virtual eyeshadow experience is now live across more than 4,000 shoppable shades, while its lipstick Try On experience is active with more than 10,000 color options.

“Eyeshadow Try On is also integrated with skin tone ranges, so Pinners filter results by makeup that best matches their skin tone, and can visualize results on others with Related Looks recommendations.”

It’s a good addition, which aligns both with the noted rise in eCommerce, and with the emergence of AR tools to provide more engagement and interaction options. Indeed, Pinterest notes that 

“Pinners try on an average of six lipstick shades and are 5x more likely to show purchase intent on Try on-enabled Pins than standard Pins.”

AR, overall, is set to see significant growth in 2021, with the likely arrival of AR-enabled glasses and more advanced visual effects options facilitated by developments like Apple’s LiDAR technology in latest model iPhones. Snapchat’s also working to incorporate more product-related AR functionality into its camera, with scannable bar codes and logos to activate additional features.

Pinterest, which saw big growth in 2020 as a result of more people looking to shop for products online, has been developing its AR and visual recognition tools with a specific focus on product promotion – which leads into the next announcement: an expansion of its product tagging tools.  

“In October we announced updates to make product tagging more seamless with a new design and functionality for retailers to tag their own scene images with specific products, and now we’re starting to open the feature in beta to a growing number of advertisers. In the coming months we’ll launch product tagging to creators to tag in-stock products in their own Story Pins.”

Story Pins could soon get a lot more focus in the app, with a current test that sees the addition of a new Stories bar on the home screen of the app.

That could make product tagging within Story Pins even more valuable, while the expansion of product tags into more elements will also provide increased capacity for item promotion within your Pin efforts.

In some ways, Pinterest replaced the physical shopping mall for many users during the pandemic, providing a simple option for browsing a wide range of artisan products, in order to find exactly what you’re after. The dedicated focus on shopping discovery has made Pinterest increasingly relevant in this respect, and with increased usage (Pinterest is now up to 442 million MAU), that’s also seen the platform used for an even wider range of shopping and discovery behaviors. That now includes people searching for new cars, the latest tech items, and even financial planning advice.

Aligning with rising trends like AR and Stories can only further benefit the platform in this respect, while it also provides fresh considerations for marketers seeking additional avenues to connect.