Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has released a barrage of new hardware in the past few months, including new Echo smart speakers and the Cloud Cam home security camera.
They all contribute to AMZN stock by adding to revenue, and getting Alexa — the company’s personal assistant — out there, getting smarter with each use and helping owners to buy more stuff online.
Now the company is launching a feature that lets you see what these products will look like in your home. Amazon’s new AR View is a capability within its Amazon App for iOS that uses Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) ARKit augmented reality framework.
That’s right, the new Amazon shopping app is leveraging Apple’s technology to convince people to buy more things and boost AMZN revenue.
Amazon Announces AR View
Amazon announced AR View in a press release about its Black Friday Deals Store. What is AR View? Here’s Amazon’s pitch:
“Customers can shop when they want, where they want with the Amazon App, which now includes a brand new augmented reality feature, AR view, for customers to see how thousands of items look in their space before they buy.”
In other words, this is augmented reality capability for the Amazon shopping app, which makes good use of Apple’s new ARKit framework. Select a product on Amazon.com in the app, choose the AR View feature, click the iPhone’s camera button and the app places a photorealistic 3D model of he object within the customer’s home.
They can move the product around within the field of view, rotate it and generally get a very good idea of what something like a new Echo Show might look like in their home. Products supported at launch include small appliances, electronics and toys.
The feature can be used on the iPhone 6s and up.
If AR View sounds familiar, it should. The new feature in the Amazon shopping app is almost identical to one Ikea released in the early days of ARKit. Early days being the summer — technology moves fast.
How AR View Will Impact AMZN Stock
From an investment perspective, AR View itself does nothing directly for AMZN stock. Customers aren’t paying for the feature.
What it does is make the Amazon shopping app more appealing to use. That makes it more likely shoppers may click the button to add an item to their cart.
And because AR View lets them get a pretty realistic view of what the item would look like in their home, it’s possible that AR View may help to reduce return rates on some merchandise.
There’s always a percentage of buyers who purchase something online, unbox it, set it up in their living room and decide it just doesn’t look right. Those returns cost AMZN money in shipping costs and the likelihood of having to discount the item to resell it. With thin retail margins, every little bit helps.
The launch of AR View is also good news for Apple. Amazon specifies that the feature is included in the iOS version of the Amazon shopping app, and uses ARKit. Nowhere in there will you find any mention of Android support, or Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) competing ARCore augmented reality platform.
That’s a pretty big endorsement for Apple’s AR platform, and the more companies that offer a compelling use of ARKit, the more likely owners of older iPhones are to upgrade to a new model that supports augmented reality.
Of course, Apple may also lose a few customers as a result. Shoppers may look at the photos of Apple’s new HomePod smart speaker online, then use AR View to virtually place an Amazon Echo Plus in their living room and decide the Echo looks great.
The holiday shopping season is almost here, and now Amazon has yet another way to entice you to spend more.
As of this writing, Brad Moon did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
