Dive Brief:

• Etsy on Tuesday introduced an augmented reality (AR) tool to help users visualize art, photos and prints in their homes.
• Etsy users can open the retailer's app on their iPhone or iPad and use the new AR tool to visualize how wall art will fit in different areas of their space. The retailer noted that it has more than five million items available in its art and collectibles category. 
• The beta launch of the tool only includes prints, photographs and portraits, but the company will be expanding its AR feature into other categories in the future, per the company statement. The company also plans to make the feature available on Android at a later date.

Dive Insight:

Add Etsy to the growing list of companies that have recently debuted AR features to help consumers test out products before purchasing them. From March to May, Shopify, Kendra Scott, L'Oreal and Asos have launched their own.

Etsy's product and engineering teams developed the feature as part of the retailer's efforts to provide customers with "a more visual shopping experience," per its statement. The tool enables users to get a sense of products' size, look and feel in their space of choice, a use-case that has in recent years figured strongly at furniture brands, where determining the size of a couch or chair is particularly important to ensure it fits in the dimensions of the room.

Etsy's AR rollout also follows a broader trend of AR and VR adoption. A May Coresight research report predicted that the global reality technology market, which includes AR and VR, could grow to $18.8 billion in 2020. The pandemic has also created an environment where the benefits of AR and VR for shoppers have become more relevant as consumers purchase more goods from home.

Brands are already attempting to connect with consumers digitally while the outbreak keeps customers out of stores, but as shoppers spend more time at home due to COVID-19, many are also engaging in home improvement projects, making apps like Etsy's particularly useful while consumer attention remains centered inside the home.