Dive Brief:

• Building on its augmented reality offerings, Etsy on Monday debuted the Etsy House, its first interactive, augmented reality experience that lets shoppers tour a digital home decorated with curated items from the marketplace. 
• The Etsy House features true-to-scale renderings and 360-degree imagery in a virtual home displaying holiday decor and gifts, Etsy Design Award-winning items, furniture, artwork and other goods. If users spot something they like, they can hover over it to view the product information and a purchase link, the company said. 
• The company created the Etsy House in collaboration with The Boundary, a creative visualization studio, per the announcement.

Dive Insight:

With the Etsy House, the handmade goods marketplace is continuing to experiment with augmented reality technology. In June 2020, the company released an AR tool to help shoppers view art, photos and prints in their homes.

Etsy is far from the only retailer using AR and virtual reality to help customers visualize products remotely. In October 2020, David's Bridal collaborated with Vertebrae, an AR tech company, to create 3D and AR product pages for its best-selling dresses. In May 2020, Asos unveiled an AR tool to allow customers to view models wearing items on its product pages. And in August 2020, Amazon debuted an AR shopping tool that allows shoppers to visualize multiple furniture items from Amazon and its third-party sellers within their homes.

Tech companies are also adding AR to their e-commerce operations to improve social shopping. In December 2020, Google teamed up with ModiFace and Perfect Corp. to release an AR cosmetic try-on feature through the Google app. Facebook said in June that it would integrate AR try-on tools into Instagram in collaboration with ModiFace and Perfect Corp. Snapchat has been leaning hard into AR, including through its acquisition of virtual fitting startup Fit Analytics and efforts like its AR shoppable jeans guide with American Eagle.

Improving its technology offerings is not the only way Etsy has expanded its business lately. The handmade marketplace has taken two other companies under its wing this summer. In early June, Etsy purchased resale platform Depop for $1.63 billion, with the deal expected to close sometime in Q3. Later that month, the company bought Elo7, an online marketplace that Etsy CEO Josh Silverman dubbed the "Etsy of Brazil," for $217 million in cash.