Custom Face Mapping App For eCommerce Stores

With the increasing popularity of online modes of buying and selling goods, new challenges keep haunting the eCommerce industry. It leads innovative entrepreneurs to seek unique solutions for encountering these challenges. The best example is the increasing use of custom face mapping apps in online stores that sell sunglasses.

“The custom face mapping app technology has a huge potential for revolutionizing the process of buying glasses online. Apart from making in-store processes more efficient, it can also help to make buying glasses online significantly easier” – Tom Broughton, CEO, Cubbits.

It is not wrong to say that before the advent of face mapping or virtual try-on glasses apps, the process of buying glasses online was quite complicated. In addition to causing inconvenience to the buyers who get mismatched sizes, it also contributed to the huge return handling costs for the online stores.

What are face mapping apps, and how do they benefit the brands?

Face scanning or virtual try-on glasses app is one of the powerful e-retailing and user retention tools available for stores belonging to industries like fashion, prescription glasses, sunglasses, cosmetics, health, and more.

These apps use artificial intelligence and machine learning to extract features like facial regions (such as eye spacing), variations, angles, and ratios. On eCommerce stores, these apps capture this data and match it to the most relevant products stored in the database.

The usability and benefits of virtual reality applications have tempted many brands like Rayban, Sephora, and Smartbuyglasses to use this technology for catering to unexceptional experiences for their customers. Let’s check out some of the best advantages of 3D face scanning apps for selling eyewear products online:-

• Contributes to a better User Experience
• Promotes Customer Satisfaction
• Helps to decrease the return orders rate
• Promotes overall business profitability
• Makes your business more competitive

Our experience with virtual try-on glasses apps

As we are into mobile and web app development for more than a decade now, our teams have versatile experience in building extensions and apps powered by AI. We recently delivered a custom face-mapping app to one of our clients selling eyeglasses using Shopify.

We built this app using javascript and equipped it with features that can translate well to the stuff that users of the client’s store wear on their faces. The objective was to reduce the friction in purchasing sunglasses or prescription glasses while overcoming the challenges that the client experience with the idea of offering his products for home try-on.

Let’s go through some of the significant features of our custom 3D face scanning app to understand how it was a perfect fit to uplift the traditional eyeglasses retail experience for both sunglasses retailers and buyers in their stores.

Ability to use cameras from the user’s device

Unlike most similar apps that require users to upload their pictures for suggesting the right sunglasses, we equipped our face-scanning app with the feature to use the cameras from mobile phones, tabs, and computers. The users can start using the virtual try-on feature in real time by just allowing access to cameras.

Picture Credits – EyeBuyDirect

Feature to detect different face types

The app was capable of detecting the different face types to suggest the most relevant sunglasses or prescription glasses to the users. The client has already categorized the glasses for different face types.

Once the app identifies any particle face type, the products corresponding to that category are recommended to the users. Below are the face types that our custom 3D face scanning app can identify:-

• Round Face Shape
• Square Face Shape
• Oval Face Shape
• Heart-shaped Face
• Diamond Face Shape
• Rectangle Face Shape

Ability to detect facial landmarks and expressions

Identifying the shape of the face was not enough to make this face mapping web app effective for selling eyeglasses that are a perfect match for buyers. We also needed to consider the facial landmarks and the user’s expressions. 

A slight mismatch of these two factors can result in wrong product selection thus ultimately leading to returned orders.

Ability to detect age and gender

Almost every brand deals in separate collections for different genders. Similarly, the products can also vary according to the age of the users. You can easily notice this in popular fashion stores where they have separate collections for men, women, boys, and girls.

Our custom face scanning app was capable of detecting the age and gender of the users. It helped in recommending sunglasses, frames, and eyewear relevant to specific age groups.

Virtual try-on for sunglasses and prescription glasses

The app maps the face and provides recommendations based on it, the users can try on the recommended products virtually. The app was capable of showing precise positions and true-to-life 3D forms using live cameras, thus preventing buyers from the hassle of getting mismatched products and returns.

Image Credit- Banton Frameworks

What else can Custom face mapping apps do?

In addition to the stores that sell sunglasses, such face mapping web apps can prove their worth to other business niches too. The sectors like law enforcement, healthcare, education, and more have already started reaping the benefits of face mapping technologies. 

Check out the below points to understand the increasing popularity and acceptance of custom face mapping apps across different industries:-

• Face Mapping apps for the healthcare sector can help to fix appointments and monitor patients remotely.
• Consumer electronics businesses are implementing face mapping technology for better experiences with their products.
• Banks and financial institutes are using this technology to make financial transactions safer than ever before.
• Automobile manufacturers are using this technology to enhance security and safer driving experiences.
• The aviation industry is implementing facial recognition instead of boarding passes to streamline the boarding process.

Final Words

These were some insights into the growing popularity of face-mapping web apps and their usability across different industries. Apart from face-mapping technologies, we can also help to leverage other AI-based and Machine learning technologies to scale and grow your digital businesses.

If you are planning to use such apps to take your business to next level, our seasoned experts can help you build a custom face-mapping app with functionalities that make your business operations and customer experience better than ever before. Let’s get in touch and work out perfect solutions to maximize your ROIs.