Snapchat launches festive AR retail experience

Social media platform Snapchat, which has more than 900 million monthly active users, has unveiled a festive retail experience in augmented reality (AR), designed to bring holiday shopping to life through immersive and interactive digital boutiques.

The inaugural Snapchat Winter Village launches in collaboration with luxury fashion brand Boss, Swiss watchmaker and jeweller Chopard, and French beauty brand Lancôme, where each brand has created its own distinctive boutique, offering an exclusive AR experience designed in collaboration with the creative studio Atomic.

In a statement, Snapchat said the winter village experience offers brands a unique opportunity to reinvent their holiday shopping, targeting Gen Z and Millennial consumers by harnessing the power of Snapchat’s AR technology to deliver an immersive and engaging shopping experience by transforming “gift discovery into a moment of wonder and delight”.

The Snapchat Winter Village experience runs from December 1 to 31, and will be available in the UK, the US, France, Germany, the Nordics, Benelux and the Middle East. It has been designed to allow Snapchatters the chance to explore each brand’s digital boutique and discover their products within an immersive shopping experience, just as they would in real life, before shopping items directly through each brand’s e-commerce sites.

The interactive retail experience can be accessed directly from the Snapchat Lens carousel and from each brand’s public profile through dedicated augmented reality lenses.

Snapchat reinvents holiday shopping with an augmented reality festive experience

For the winter village, Boss has created an “augmented factory,” offering Snapchatters a festive sophisticated space with copper-toned walls and wooden crates, animated by a central conveyor belt, which highlights the latest Boss x Steiff collection, while Chopard invites visitors into a refined digital reinterpretation of its boutique, a delicate paper-like world where every architectural detail, from the curtains to the furniture, seems sculpted in ivory and light. Snapchatters can browse the Maison’s watches and jewellery, which are showcased alongside an interactive product card revealing their story and craftsmanship.

The Lancôme boutique AR experience has reimagined the luxury perfume store as a train carriage floating above snowy mountains. Snapchatters can wander through the refined pink and gold interior of the carriage, where each fragrance icon is presented. Selecting a product reveals the story and inspiration behind each creation – from the new musky vanilla fragrance, Vanille Nude, to the house’s signature La Vie Est Belle L’Original eau de parfum.

Geoffrey Perez, global head of luxury at Snap Inc., said: “The Snapchat Winter Village reimagines augmented shopping by offering an interactive space where brands don’t simply present their creations - they invite Snapchatters into their worlds to explore, feel, and experience the magic of holiday shopping.

“This first edition, created with Chopard, Boss, and Lancôme, is a powerful example of how technology can transform discovery into an inspiring, memorable, and truly luxurious moment.”