Asos launches Scan to Shop

Online fashion retailer Asos.com is allowing customers to shop straight from the pages of its monthly magazine, thanks to its new Aurasma-powered ‘Scan to Shop’ app. The free app will allow customers to simply point their phones at images

of this season’s ‘must-have’ pieces inside the print magazine and simply click to buy from Asos’s mobile site from their smartphones.

In total there are over 50 different auras throughout the May issue of Asos Magazine, transforming the journey from magazine, to website and to purchase. In addition, Asos has incorporated a digital treasure hunt into the magazine, where hidden symbols can be unlocked in return for exclusive offers.

Asos is the second major global e-tailer in as many weeks to choose to roll out Aurasma’s technology; just last week eBay launched a nationwide Aurasma-enabled print and outdoor campaign. They have joined a growing number of online retailers including Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter who are using Aurasma to engage customers beyond their website and transform the way customers buy clothes.

Duncan Edwards from Asos Magazine commented: "Aurasma's technology has given us a neat way to connect the website with the printed magazine. We know our readers love fashion and their mobiles and this app unites the two.

“Our readers look forward to receiving the magazine in the post, but they also want the convenience and immediacy of shopping via their phones. Our new "Scan to Shop" app uses Aurasma to bring the two experiences – reading the magazine and shopping online – together seamlessly and we look forward to exploring other uses for this technology."

Asos offers more than 50,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty, and has websites targeting the UK, USA, France and Germany and also ships to over 190 other countries. Aimed at fashion-forward 16-34 year olds, Asos attracts over 13.6 million unique visitors a month and as at 30 September 2011.