Eyewear is among the hardest categories to sell online, and for a single reason: nobody buys a frame they cannot picture on their own face. Fit and appearance are the entire decision, product photography on a model answers neither, and the categories that guess get punished twice — once on conversion, again on returns, which in eyewear can quietly erase the margin on every sale that did convert. Any solution also had to work without an app install, because a customer who has to download something before they can try a frame has already left.
We built a React front-end on Shopify Plus with augmented-reality virtual try-on running in the browser across devices — no install, no friction. A customer sees the frame on their own face, in real time, before committing. Frame customisation extends the same principle: change a colour or a finish and see it immediately rather than imagining it. Social commerce was built around the try-on rather than around product shots, because the experience itself is the most persuasive asset the brand has — seeing someone try frames in-feed does the selling that a catalogue image cannot.
React front-end on Shopify Plus · in-browser AR virtual try-on with cross-device support and no app install · real-time face detection and frame tracking · frame and finish customisation · social commerce integration with catalogue sync · try-on engagement tracked as a conversion signal.
Face detection and tracking place and scale the frame accurately in real time, which is what separates a convincing try-on from a novelty. Processing happens in the browser, so imagery is not sent anywhere — a deliberate privacy decision in a category where the input is a customer’s face. Engagement with try-on is tracked as a conversion signal in its own right, so merchandising follows the frames people actually try rather than the ones that photograph well.
Recommendation informed by face shape and prescription data, with clear disclosure and explicit opt-in — and a human optical check before anything is presented as clinical advice. Frame suggestion is a retail problem; vision is not, and the line between them should stay visible.