Dive Brief:
- Looking to bolster smooth in-app purchases, Amazon has debuted Amazon Anywhere, a new shopping tool that allows users to make purchases within games and apps, the retailer announced on Tuesday. The tool is launching within Peridot, an augmented reality adventure pet game.
- Amazon Anywhere enables shoppers to see relevant products, for example Peridot-branded merchandise, within a selected game or app, and access product details, images, prices, estimated delivery date and other information. Shoppers can buy their desired items without leaving the game, once they connect their Amazon account to the chosen app.
- Developers can also use Amazon Anywhere to curate a selection of goods for shoppers to buy within games and apps. Fulfillment and delivery of the products are handled by Amazon.
Dive Insight:
In its quest to improve in-game shopping, Amazon tapped Niantic, which developed the Pokémon Go game, as its first partner. But the retailer noted in its blog post that the tool can be used more broadly for video games, mobile apps and virtual worlds.
“We’re creating a new landscape for shoppable entertainment and digital experiences while continuing to meet our customers where they are, with the products they love,” Steve Downer, vice president of consumer electronics at Amazon, wrote in a company blog post. “Most shopping in virtual worlds is currently limited to purchases of virtual currency and in-game digital items, with no easy path to purchase physical products. We want to change that.”
Amazon has worked in other ways to improve the in-app buying experience of its products. Last year, the retailer rolled out a virtual shoe try-on feature in its shopping app to help consumers visualize products from the brands it sells. In November, the company began using Snapchat’s Shopping Lenses, allowing Snapchat users to try on glasses from thousands of eyewear brands sold at Amazon Fashion digitally.
Much like Amazon Anywhere, Snap offers its shopping tools to businesses to improve their digital shopping experience. Earlier this year, the company unveiled its AR Enterprise Services arm, which allows companies to add Snap’s AR technology to their own operations, including its 3D Viewer, AR Try-On and Fit Finder tools. Per Snap’s survey findings released in April 2022, 92% of Gen Z shoppers want to use AR technology for online shopping.
