
Use virtual try-on to reduce returns for hair and nail products on a Shopify-based platform

Nowadays, consumers don’t have much time to go for offline shopping, so most people opt for online shopping as their go-to way because it allows them to browse and shop for products anytime and anywhere. But online shopping comes with lots of struggles, and one of the most annoying struggles that both buyers and sellers face is returning products due to color and size mismatch, which can lead to additional and unnecessary costs of logistics and products.
Therefore, to reduce product returns and cut down unnecessary expenses, many e-commerce brands have been using the virtual try-on tool on their website and application, which will help their customers make more informed and confident buying decisions during online shopping. The virtual try-on tool can be used for various categories, such as hair, nails, makeup, watches, and eyewear, which will help users to eliminate buyer’s remorse and make satisfactory purchases.
In this blog, I will help you understand how using a virtual try-on tool for hair and nail products will help businesses decrease their product returns on a Shopify-based e-commerce store. Apart from that, I will also help you understand how using the virtual try-on will help you make stronger relationships with your customers while fostering their trust and loyalty towards your business.
What is a virtual try-on, and what are its key features?
A virtual try-on is an online tool that uses augmented reality and AI-driven technologies to provide users with an engaging and interactive shopping experience by enabling them to explore and try different products virtually. By integrating this online tool on the e-commerce platform, online businesses can potentially improve their conversion rates and sales by providing their customers with a realistic shopping experience in which they can try products using AR overlays in the real-world environment.
Apart from that, it also allows users to explore products from different angles and perspectives by using 3D models, which they can rotate, spin, and zoom, enabling them to understand the packaging and detailing of the products more profoundly. Online sellers and businesses can use this online tool for various categories, such as makeup, accessories, jewelry, watches, clothing, footwear, hair, and nails, which will also help them to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping journeys.
Key features
- Real-time AR visualization: It provides users with a realistic visualization of products by using augmented reality technology, which will allow them to try the 3D, digital versions of products on their face or body in real time while moving them with enhanced realism.
- AI-powered accuracy: It analyzes and detects the body and facial features of users to help them understand the placement and fitting of the digital products on themselves, which can also be done by mapping makeup to facial features or clothes to body shapes.
- Immersive experience: It provides users with an engaging and immersive shopping journey by enabling them to explore and try different products with real-time visualization of a product in their everyday life while sitting comfortably at home.
- Immediate personalization: It provides users with a personalized shopping experience by enabling them to make changes and try on products in multiple colors, styles, or variations, which will help them discover products in different styles while increasing brand engagement.
- Device compatibility: It allows users to try and explore different products on different devices and platforms by offering them cross-device compatibility, which will provide them accessibility for web browsers or apps, mobile devices, and tablets, helping the brand to reach a wider audience.
Different strategies to opt for reduce product returns for online sellers and brands
To reduce the product return rate, brands need to improve their marketing strategies, as it will help them to provide their customers with an engaging and immersive shopping experience while sitting at home. Brands can also opt for various strategies in which they can improve product display and visualization on the website or app, improve size and fit accuracy, and optimize logistics and fulfillment processes.
By implementing these strategies, hair and nail brands can help their customers make more informed and confident purchasing decisions while building stronger bonds with their customers, which also improves their satisfaction and trust in them. In this section, I will provide you with detailed information on these strategies and how they will help you reduce product return rates on the e-commerce website or app.
1. Optimize product information and visuals
- In-depth product descriptions: It helps brands and businesses to provide their customers with detailed specifications, materials, dimensions, and weight of the product to set accurate expectations, which will provide them with complete transparency about product information by providing them with true and trustworthy information.
- High-quality visuals and video: It helps businesses to provide their customers with complete detailing of the products by using multiple high-resolution photos from different angles, including 360-degree views, to eliminate surprises, which will help users to understand the product completely and make more informed purchase decisions while using short videos to show the product in action and demonstrate functionality.
- Virtual try-on tool: It helps businesses to keep their users engaged on the website or app by enabling them to try and explore different products with the help of AR try-on, which will allow them to visualize products in their own space or on their body while reducing returns due to color, style, and visual expectation mismatch.
2. Improve Sizing and Fit Accuracy
- Detailed size guides: By providing customers with comprehensive size charts with measurements in various units, such as centimeters and inches, along with tips on how to measure accurately, the brand can reduce buyers' remorse related to size accuracy and reduce their product returns.
- AI-powered fit recommendations: It helps businesses to provide their customers with a tailored experience by using AI tools to provide them with size recommendations by analyzing their past purchases, return history, and customer data, which will reduce their product return rate.
- User-generated content: It helps businesses to improve their content by collecting customers' reviews along with photos and detailed fit information, which will help them to understand issues, such as shade accuracy, opacity, longevity, and finish expectations, so that they can improve their content and products according to customers' needs and preferences.
3. Enhance pre-purchase customer experience
- Live chat support: By providing users with real-time support to answer their questions before purchase, it will help the brand to clarify their doubts and prevent incorrect orders, which will help users to make more informed purchase decisions while helping the brand to reduce its product returns significantly.
- Interactive quiz: It helps businesses and brands to provide their customers with detailed buyer guides or quizzes, which will help them select the correct model, style, or size, especially for complex products, depending on their needs and preferences, while reducing the product returns for the brand.
4. Optimize logistics and fulfillment processes
- Sturdy packaging: It helps businesses to reduce their product return rates by enabling them to invest in protective and high-quality packaging, which will help them to deliver products without any damage during transit while providing their customers with a better experience.
- Accurate and fast shipping: By using reliable logistics partners, online sellers and brands can make sure that their products arrive within the promised timeframe, which will help them reduce their returns due to late deliveries or incomplete shipments.
- Automated warehouse operations: By automating the warehouse operations, online brands and sellers can fulfill their orders in a timely manner by using advanced warehouse management systems, which will also help them to reduce their product returns by sending their customers timely updates.
5. Revise return policies and incentives
- Encourage exchanges over refunds: Always try to encourage your customers to exchange instead of getting refunds by offering them instant exchanges or store credit with added incentives, such as bonus credit, instead of a full cash refund.
- Lengthen return windows: Improve your return policies by increasing the return time period, for example, 60–90 days, to return products, which can reduce returns because it removes the sense of urgency by allowing the "endowment effect" or “attachment to the product” to take over.
- Omnichannel returns: Always try to provide your customers with omnichannel returns by allowing them to make returns for online purchases at a physical store, which will encourage them to make repeat purchases and reduce shipping costs.
6. Analyze and act on data
- Track return reasons: Always keep an eye on the data and reasons behind the product returns, as it will help you to work on product development by understanding the needs and preferences of your customers while reducing the product returns by identifying and fixing recurring issues with specific products or suppliers.
- Identify frequent returners: Make sure that you analyze and monitor the behavior of your customers during the return because it will help you to identify customers who abuse the policy and consider limiting their ability to purchase or providing them with alternative policies.
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Benefits of using virtual try-on for hair and nail businesses
With the help of the virtual try-on, online hair and nail businesses can boost their customer confidence and sales by allowing them to simulate styles in real time, exploring and trying different products virtually before making any purchase decisions. Apart from that, it also helps businesses reduce return rates by improving shade and style confidence—especially for hair color and nail design selection.
Apart from that, using virtual try-on tools will also help the brand to increase engagement, provide personalized recommendations, and offer convenient, hygienic, and sustainable shopping experiences, which will help them improve brand loyalty and higher conversion rates. In this section, I will tell you about the advantages of using the virtual try-on for hair and nail businesses on their e-commerce website or app.
1. Higher conversions and sales
It helps businesses to improve their conversions and sales by providing their customers with engaging features, such as rotate, spin, and zoom, offering them a real-time visualization of the products virtually.
Apart from that, it will also help businesses to increase conversions and sales by increasing the likelihood of customers making an informed purchase of different products, including hair and nails, because it offers them a lifelike representation and a try-on feature on the website or app.
2. Reduced return rates
It helps businesses and brands to reduce their product return rates by allowing their customers to visualize products, such as hair colors or nail designs, which will help them make more informed and confident purchases during online shopping. It will also help the brand to increase user confidence and satisfaction by offering them a realistic visualization of products and allowing them to try using AR overlays.
3. Enhanced customer confidence and satisfaction
It helps businesses to improve customer confidence and satisfaction by allowing them to experiment with various products in numerous styles, which will help them to reduce buyer’s remorse and uncertainty while increasing satisfaction.
Apart from that, it will also help businesses to align their products with customer expectations and results by analyzing their reviews and return reasons, which will help them to stay in line with client expectations and increase their satisfaction.
4. Personalization and engagement
With the help of the virtual try-on tool, businesses can provide their customers with a personalized shopping experience by offering them AI-powered recommendations based on their previous purchases and history.
Apart from that, it also helps businesses to keep their customers engaged on the website by using computer vision mapping—such as face/head detection for hair previews and hand/finger tracking for nail try-on.
5. Convenience and safety
With the help of the virtual try-on tool, online sellers and businesses can provide their customers with a convenient and safer way to try and explore new products using their device’s camera anytime, anywhere.
It also reduces the risk of hygiene for some customers, as they don’t prefer to try products used by other customers, by replacing the testers with digital images or models of products, which will allow brands to provide their customers with a better and enhanced experience.
6. Valuable data insights
It provides users with detailed and data-driven insights into customer behavior, which will help the online seller and business to track their preferences and needs so that they can improve their marketing strategies accordingly.
Apart from that, it also helps businesses to develop better products by analyzing customers’ reviews so that they can generate more user-friendly content and products while targeting a wider audience.
Step-by-step approach on how to use a virtual try-on on the Shopify platform to reduce returns
To reduce the return rate of beauty products on the Shopify platform for hair and nail products, online businesses and brands need to follow some effective approaches along with the implementation of AI-powered virtual try-on technology. It allows online sellers and brands to provide their customers with a realistic experience by enabling them to visualize products, such as hair color, styles, or nail polish shades, which will help users make more confident and satisfactory purchasing decisions.
In this section, I will provide you with a list of some of these approaches that brands and businesses should consider while integrating the virtual try-on on their e-commerce platforms for hair and nail products.
1. Implement specialized tools
While implementing the virtual try-on, always select a provider that offers a dedicated virtual try-on feature for nail and hair products, which will help you provide your customers with a real-time, high-accuracy experience.
You can also opt for a Shopify-based app or SDK, such as GlamAR, which will allow you to customize the tool according to your store’s theme and design, which will help you to provide your customers with a smooth and seamless online shopping experience.
2. Leverage key features
Always use a virtual try-on that helps you to provide your customers with a better and enhanced experience by offering them a true-to-life representation of colors, styles, sizes, and patterns of products during virtual shopping.
It will help your customers to have more informed and satisfactory shopping experiences while reducing their uncertainty about color and size mismatch, which will help the brand to reduce their product return rates on the e-commerce platform.
3. Integrate and optimize for user experience
Integrate the virtual try-on feature directly into your product detail page or on the home page to encourage customers to interact with the tool and explore the products with the help of the virtual try-on technology.
Also, make sure that you opt for a mobile-first approach because it will help you to attract the majority of the audience and users through their mobile devices while offering them fast loading and higher responsiveness across various devices or software, along with before-and-after results for better comparison.
4. Support technology with content
Always provide your customers with detailed information about the product along with user-generated content, which will help you reduce the uncertainty about the product information and help your customers make better decisions during virtual shopping.
Apart from that, always try to analyze and study customers’ reviews because it will help you understand their perspectives and help you develop products that complement their needs and improve their satisfaction.
5. Monitor and refine
Last but not least, always make sure to test the virtual try-on feature for a small audience because it will help you to understand whether the tool is working or not. It will also help you to understand how the tool is working by gathering customer feedback on the user experiences, which you can use to improve user experience while providing them with better visualization of the products with detailed information, 3D models, and AR overlays.
Comparison table on various Shopify virtual try-on apps
Tips to consider when selecting the virtual try-on solution for hair and nails
While selecting the virtual try-on SDK for your business, you have to focus on various factors that will help you provide a better and enhanced online shopping experience to customers. Some of the common factors that you can consider are realism, accuracy, ease of use, integration, functionality, and features, which will help you to provide your customers with better experiences while reducing product returns due to uncertainty and buyer’s remorse.
In this section, I will provide you with a list of some expert tips that you must remember while choosing the virtual try-on SDK for your hair and nail business, which will also help you to provide your customers with a better experience and reduce product return rates.
1. Realism and accuracy
A virtual try-on SDK helps businesses to provide their customers with an enhanced, real-time online shopping experience, which can be done by focusing on realism and accuracy because these are crucial features that you should consider while selecting the software.
Always try to opt for a virtual hair and nail try-on SDK that provides your customers with high-quality 3D models and a precise simulation of products on their hair and nails, which will help them understand the placement and features of products appropriately.
2. Ease of use and integration
Always select an SDK that offers seamless and easy integration of the virtual try-on, along with a simpler interface, because it will help the brand to provide its customers with an intuitive and easy-to-navigate user interface while exploring and trying products.
Also, try to use an SDK that offers cross-device compatibility, which will help the brand to provide its customers with a similar shopping experience across various devices and platforms while helping the brand to reach a wider audience, irrespective of their device.
3. Functionality and features
Always try to select a virtual try-on SDK that helps a hair and nail brand to build a stronger relationship with its customers by offering them advanced features, which will work on higher functionalities, and help the brand to connect more strongly with users.
Apart from that, you can also opt for an SDK that offers advanced features, such as face detection, customization options, and social sharing, which will help the e-commerce seller to provide its users with a lifelike shopping experience.
4. Commercial aspects
Before finalizing the virtual try-on SDK for hair and nail products, always look for its commercial aspects, including pricing models, trial periods, customer support, and impact on returns, because it will help you to understand more about its commercial aspects.
Apart from that, considering these aspects will help the online brand or business to boost engagement, enhance experience, and increase conversion rates while helping them to foster customer trust and loyalty so that they can build stronger customer relationships.
GlamAR’s virtual try-on SDK for hair and nail products
GlamAR is an AI- and AR-based solution provider that offers interactive visual tools and personalization technologies for beauty and e-commerce brands, which they can use to support revenue growth by improving customer engagement and product visualization. by providing their customers with an immersive and engaging shopping experience. It provides multiple AR-based solutions, such as virtual try-ons, 3D model creators, product configurators, and 360-degree viewers, which will help brands to bridge the gap between virtual and in-store shopping experiences for their customers.
With the help of its virtual try-on for hair and nail products, online brands and businesses can help their customers virtually try on several products, including wigs and nails, which will provide them with a realistic and lifelike product exploration experience. Apart from that, it also provides users with three different modes, which include uploading an image, using the live camera, or selecting a model, which will enable them to try and explore various products in real-world 3D environments.
It also helps businesses to increase their engagement by 94% by providing their clients with interactive try-ons that will keep them engaged for a longer time while turning their passive browsing into active interest. Apart from that, it also helps hair and nail brands to drive 45% more conversions and reduce product returns by 40%, which will help them to stand out from their competitors by offering advanced features, such as 3D rendering, cross-device compatibility, customizable assets, and an easy catalog onboarding.
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Key features
- Easy Integration: It provides brands with an easy-to-integrate virtual try-on that will help them to easily integrate the tool with their pre-existing e-commerce platform. It also has a dedicated team to help developers during the integration process and make the launch a seamless process.
- Precise matching: It helps users select the accurate hair and nail products according to their needs and preferences, which also reduces the uncertainty of color and shade mismatch. It helps the brands to build stronger relationships with their customers by providing them with an enhanced shopping experience.
- Cross-device compatibility: It provides users with a similar yet immersive online shopping experience by allowing brands to build an e-commerce store that is compatible with different platforms, including mobile phones, tablets, and desktops, which will offer them accessibility to explore products without geographical limitations.
Benefits
- Higher conversion rate: It helps businesses to improve their conversion rates and sales by allowing their customers to explore and try different products in various colors and styles with the help of the real-time AR try-on so that they can make more informed and confident purchases during online shopping.
- Personalized user experience: It provides users with a personalized shopping experience by using advanced AI-based algorithms to analyze their purchasing behavior and history, which will help the brand provide its customers with tailored product recommendations while helping them build stronger customer relationships.
- Reduced product return rate: It helps businesses to reduce their product returns by helping their customers to make more informed decisions by offering them a realistic and lifelike visualization of their products in real-world environments with the help of AR overlays and 3D models.
How does GlamAR’s hair and nail try-on help businesses to reduce product returns?
GlamAR is an AI- and AR-based solution provider that helps online sellers and brands to reduce their product return rates by providing their customers with the ability to make more informed and confident decisions during online shopping. With the help of its virtual try-on SDK, online hair and nail product sellers can provide their customers with an engaging and immersive experience with enhanced realism and accuracy.
It also helps businesses to integrate their catalog with the virtual try-on so that they can provide their customers with an engaging preview of products available on their e-commerce store with the help of the virtual try-on or 3D models. It will help users to explore and try different products in engaging ways by using various features, such as rotation, zoom, and spin, which will enable them to explore products from different angles and perspectives.
By using GlamAR’s virtual try-on SDK, brands can provide their customers with an engaging and satisfying experience so that they can make decisions without any buyer’s remorse and uncertainty of color or style mismatch. Therefore, it will help online sellers and brands of hair and nail products to reduce their product returns while helping them to build stronger relationships with their customers and foster their trust with the help of AR try-ons and 3D models.
Conclusion
Using a virtual try-on SDK helps hair and nail brands and businesses to provide their customers with a realistic and lifelike visualization of their products during virtual shopping, which will help them to make more informed and confident decisions. It will also help customers to reduce their buyer’s remorse and uncertainty towards the color and style mismatch, which will help the brand to reduce their product returns on their e-commerce website or app.
Brands can also reduce their product returns by using some strategies, such as providing appropriate information, using high-quality visuals, optimizing logistic processes, and more, which will also help them to foster their trust and loyalty. Therefore, using the virtual try-on for hair and nail brands will help them build stronger relationships with their customers and reduce their product returns while fostering their trust and loyalty.
No, customers do not need to download an additional application for virtual try-on, as brands can use webAR solutions to provide their customers with seamless access through device cameras on browsers or e-commerce sites, which will help them provide their customers with instant try-ons without installations for better user convenience.
Yes, brands can customize virtual try-on to match their UI theme and colors by making adjustments in theme, branding elements, and personalized interfaces, which will help them to align the virtual try-on with brand identity seamlessly.
Yes, virtual try-on keeps customer data safe with GDPR-compliant practices, no storage of facial data without consent, and permission-based camera access to protect privacy effectively.
Yes, customers can share virtual try-on looks on social media like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Features generate shareable images or videos directly from sessions for easy posting.
The virtual try-on uses various core technologies, including AR for overlays, AI/ML for facial/body tracking and personalization, computer vision for landmark detection, and 3D modeling for realistic rendering.
Brands integrate the virtual try-on through SDKs or APIs by signing up for developer access, embedding widgets on product pages, uploading 3D models, and customizing with code snippets for seamless real-time try-ons.

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