Snap hopes to boost its eCommerce profile with a strong show of its maturing AR capabilities right ahead of Black Friday-the beginning of the last shopping spree for the year.

Snapchat has partnered some notable brands on several AR-based shopping campaigns, most prominent of which is its 'Snap Holiday Market', featuring interactive AR shopping experiences from Amazon, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon, and Walmart.

As Snap highlights,
\"Every brand will have a unique, immersive virtual store environment within Holiday Market, where Snapchatters can shop and browse holiday deals in AR space that's built specifically for each brand.\"The integrations will be accessible through the Lens Carousel in app and will provide dedicated product showcases, including interactive and Try-On features, along with up-front branding for each of the partner business.
It then attempts to give a preview of the developing eCommerce tools at Snap that might hit well with businesses targeting the need for reaching out to younger consumers and staying ahead of the curve as far as digital shopping engagement is concerned.

Snapchat also collaborated with an array of fashion and beauty brands to deliver even more AR try-on and eCommerce Lenses.

Meanwhile, various high-end brands such as Dior, American Eagle, and Tory Burch will participate in this larger shopping event, which would contribute to Snap's bigger push on facilitating connection to young audiences through more immersive and engaging eCommerce tools.

The emergence of online purchasing over the last two years has opened new lines of convenience and opportunity, and all of the major social networks now are looking to link in and provide a more direct connection to their audiences. The company, Snapchat especially, is set to take the next steps towards more immersive, indication-rich AR tools and options that will likely hold more specific appeal for its younger audience, while it'll make Snap move ahead of other social apps for similar in-app shopping experiences.

The company has quietly been building its on-platform shopping options that include both physical and digital items – and even some projects that overlap with those themes in that users can create digital products inside the app, which may then be commissioned as custom, physical pieces.
And while it may not have the same technological resources as Facebook and Apple when it comes to building for the next stage of AR, Snap is still arguably the leader in the space, with advanced AR try-on tools and Lenses that continue to provide more ways to facilitate in-app shopping, so you can see what fashion items look like on you, specifically, direct from your device.
Such changes put Snap in a great position to capitalize on the next evolution of commerce, and this new holiday shop will give us better insight into how Snap is thinking about the need for an improved platform for retailers to reach shoppers in that next iteration, which also leans into the wider metaverse play.

Which, of course, everyone's now buzzing about, given Facebook legitimized the next platform with its 'Meta' name change. No one knows exactly what the metaverse will be, but integrations and projects like Snap's new tools are sure to give more insight into just how our physical and digital worlds are going to increasingly collide-and exactly how young consumers, in particular, will spearhead that shift. As another nudge, Snapchat's also unveiling a new marketing campaign for the season, inviting Snapchatters to "Scan to Shop" through various Snapcodes that will activate these new AR Lens experiences.

AR remains at the heart of Snap's efforts and will form an important part of its next evolution. Indeed, Snap claims that it now enables more than 6 billion AR Lens plays daily, which underlines the potential, and this new showcase will no doubt provoke much more interest in the app's next-level connection tools as a means to tap into the rising eCommerce shift.

Coming soon, however is Snap's own AR glasses, which may also arrive sooner than many think.