In a bid to augment its e-commerce initiatives, Snapchat will integrate Screenshop’s technology onto its platform. The Screenshop app detects clothing and furniture in screenshots uploaded by users.

The new feature will be nestled inside Snapchat’s Memories, where users can save videos and photos for later. The users from there will be redirected to third-party websites for completing purchases.

Screenshop functions on a business model wherein it charges sales commissions to online retailers on the purchases users initiate through its platform. As per reports, Snapchat is going to continue with that model. The Screenshop app is currently available for download separately from Snapchat.

This is in line with Snapchat’s several other initiatives to get its 265 million global users to shop through the app as it aims to reposition itself in the e-commerce space. Also, many more brands are now willing to invest money in Snapchat as it is more targeted than TikTok and helps them diversify away from Facebook.

To recall a few such brand associations, Ralph Lauren created a Bitmoji outfits collection that sparked the interest of 20 million users last year, and Dior created an AR try-on lens featuring six different pairs of shoes for their B27 sneaker launch.

Snapchat also provides ‘permanent homes’ to brands, called Brand Profiles. These house brand AR lenses, videos, and photos, along with native shopping experiences.

“As we have learned from our progress in providing new ways for people to try-on and interact with products using augmented reality, improvements in the shopping experience to make it more entertaining and immersive can lead to powerful downstream results in terms of conversion,” said Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. “We plan to experiment rapidly and plant many seeds because we see this opportunity as very large and still very early in terms of maturity.”

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