Burberry Partners With Google to Enable AR Shopping

The luxury retailer joins a number of other brands integrating with Google to meet customers where they live.

Need to Know

  • Burberry is partnering with Google to bring customers an augmented reality shopping experience.
  • Customers can view items such as shoes and shirts at-scale against real-life backgrounds in their home.
  • Many retailers are beginning to partner with Google to improve the customer experience by meeting customers within a platform they use every day.
  • Over 3.5  billion searches are performed on Google per day.

Analysis

Burberry is bringing fashion to life with the launch of a new augmented reality (AR) shopping tool. The fashion giants announced this week that they have partnered with Google Search to allow consumers to experience Burberry products in the environment surrounding them. 

The new tool works when users search for Burberry items on Google Search. Customers can then view the item at-scale against real-life backgrounds in their home or surroundings. This means users can actually place existing outfits from their own closets next to the item to see how they would look together. 

Burberry’s AR Google partnership in action.

In a statement, the retailer wrote, “Burberry is continuously experimenting with digital innovation such as AR to create a more exciting experience and enhance personalised luxury commerce, blending the technology with other activations around the world.”

The luxury brand has also experimented with AR in-store. At the opening of its flagship store in Tokyo, customers could scan QR codes with their smartphones to activate an exclusive AR experience. 

The International Data Corp. forecasts that retailers will spend $1.5 billion on augmented and virtual reality as they experiment with using to tech to create an innovative and engaging customer experience.

But partnering with Google may be one of the keys to long-term success online. 

Fast-food chain KFC recently increased its presence on Google, too. KFC partnered with the tech giant to integrate online ordering options with Google’s Search, Maps, and Assistant functions. Customers can browse for their nearest KFC location and place an order for delivery or pickup without ever leaving the Google Maps app. 

IKEA is in on it too. The infamous furniture retailer recently launched an integration with Google Maps that would essentially pay customers back for the time spent traveling to an IKEA store. The initiative is designed to support customers who live in city centers and are forced to spend a lot of time traveling to outlets that are usually on the edges of big cities.

Partnering with Google in this era of tech is a no-brainer. Google now processes over 3.5 billion searches per day, with over 90% of internet users choosing Google as their preferred search engine.