Shopify sets sights on augmented reality for retail’s future

“This icon is now the most powerful icon in online retail,” Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke declared on Twitter Monday.

But the head of the Canadian e-commerce giant wasn’t talking about his own company’s trademark green bag logo.

Rather, the strange little transparent cube icon that appeared in Lütke’s tweet is actually the “AR glyph” designed by Apple to indicate when iPhone users can launch an augmented reality (AR) experience on their phone.

AR technology has been around for a while, but mostly in gimmick form. (Think of those Snapchat filters that make your face look like a dog.)

But Shopify has been betting that as the technology improves, augmented reality is going to be a key tool for online shopping, and this week that vision took a big step toward becoming a reality.

The big idea is that product photos for online shopping are okay, but for lots of merchandise, it’s tough to get a feel for things just by looking at a flat picture. But by using augmented reality, your smartphone can create a digital simulation of what a product will look like, right in your home.

If you’re buying, say, a wingback chair for your living room, even with product photos and measurements, it’s hard to visualize whether the chair will fit into a certain space, and how it’ll complement the rug and the sofa you already have.

But using the smartphone camera, Apple’s AR technology can project a 3D digital image of the chair into your living room, allowing you to move around and view it from all angles.

This week Apple pushed out iOS 12, the most up-to-date operating system for most iPhones. The new operating system includes a relatively obscure set of programmer tools that allow developers to more easily create AR experiences.

Shopify was already excited about this technology back in May, when the Ottawa-based e-commerce company held its annual Unite partner conference in Toronto.

Starting this year, merchants who use Shopify to handle their e-commerce systems can now upload 3D models of their products, and embed them in web pages, and Shopify is helping connect merchants to vendors who can build those 3D models based on photos and measurements.