Macy's uses AR to make its stores "an amazing place to shop"

Macy's has set out to improve its customer's experience both online and in stores. The retailer announced its upcoming introduction of an augmented reality tool in its beauty department and interactive fragrance displays to help shoppers discover products.

Launching in the spring of this year, the AR beauty experience will first debut on the Macy's app. Consumers will be able to virtually test out over 1,000 beauty products across face, eye and lip items using the function. The retailer teamed with AR company Modiface for this offering. After the initial launch, Macy's will roll out its AR beauty tool to select in-store beauty displays to allow shoppers to virtually try-on makeup in stores.

Macy's has also partnered with Perch, an interactive display provider, to bring about a new display to help shoppers navigate fragrances. The new in-store feature will help consumers navigate fragrances by scent family, filtering the assortment by top notes as scent items.

The retailer had noticed that in-store customers have searched for fragrance by brand while shoppers online opt to search by scent family, and is now aiming to help streamline the shopper's experience in discovering scents.

"We know we have to disrupt ourselves," Macy's CFO Paula Price said to Retail Dive at Shoptalk this week, where the retailer's new experiential tools were announced.

Price continued, "Macy's is reinventing the customer experience with a newfound sense of urgency," explaining that the updates to its shopping experience aim to reclaim the retailer's position as an "amazing place to shop."