In 2000, self-described “makeup junkie” Maureen Kelly set out to prove that makeup can be good for you and founded tarte™ out of her one-bedroom apartment in New York City. Pioneering the use of high-performance naturals™, Maureen created a line of easy-to-use, life-tested products in wearable shades to deliver real results for real women™.
Today, “tartelettes” (what the brand calls their fans) around the world obsess over their award-winning formulas. Each item is developed without the icky, bad stuff (like parabens, mineral oil, phthalates, & more). tarte™ is committed to sharing its passion for skinvigorating™ ingredients with the world: it has in-store presence in over 20 countries, & online at tarte.com shipping to over 70 countries worldwide!
20 years later, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit, tarte searched for ways to enhance its online shopping experience.
“With the pandemic and everyone being home and unable to go to stores, we wanted to optimize the customer’s shopping experience online,” recalls Gladys Rezabek, Senior Director of Ecommerce Merchandising at tarte cosmetics. “We wanted to incorporate virtual try-on, but we needed to find the best technology.”
tarte explored its options and chose Perfect Corp. and the Perfect Corp. YouCam AR platform. Perfect Corp. combines powerful artificial intelligence (AI) with its industry-leading augmented reality (AR) to provide stunningly life-like results. tarte chose Perfect Corp. after evaluating other AR solutions.
"We looked at a number of competitors and felt that Perfect Corp. was the clear winner with its AI and AR technology,” Rezabek says. “We also liked the user friendliness of its backend integration and that it was flexible to support our day-to-day business needs.”After going live on YouCam, tarte saw instant positive results with customers trying on products within the app and visiting the site.
Moving Virtual Try-On from YouCam to tarte’s Website
After seeing the traffic that YouCam virtual try-on was driving to tarte.com, the company decided to rapidly move to the next step: Deploying Perfect Corp. technology on its own website and using the Perfect Corp. web API.
tarte was immediately impressed by the results.
"Working with Perfect Corp., we launched our virtual try-on experience on our U.S. website in September,” Rezabek says. “In October we launched our virtual Foundation Shade Finder tool. The impact we saw from our customers was so amazing, that we immediately started adding more SKUs. The second action we immediately took was to begin rolling out our virtual try-on and Foundation Shade Finder to our international site as well.”The company found that the attraction of rich and amazingly life-like virtual try-on experiences was a hit globally.
“We saw similar user engagement between our U.S. & international sites,” Rezabek says. “Our tartelettes have been loving our virtual try-on experience and Foundation Shade-Finder.”
Benefits
tarte cosmetics has enjoyed a number of benefits since deploying the Perfect Corp.-powered virtual try-on technology, including:
200% Increase in Sales When Customers Experience Virtual Try-On or Foundation Shade Finder
Rezabek highlights the realism of Perfect Corp. AI and AR technology as a key contributing factor in making it easier for customers to convert from browsing to purchasing.
"When a customer engages with our virtual try-on, she can see what the product is going to look like on her,” Rezabek says. “This AI-powered technology allows our tartelettes to play with the products, find the ones best for them, and then make their purchase confidently.”
“Triple Digit Increase in Time Spent on Site” . . . “Fun for Users”
The same engaging AR experiences that have doubled conversion rates have also increased the time that tarte customers spend on the site whenever they engage in either the cosmetics virtual try-on or the foundation finder.
"We are seeing triple digit increases in how much time customers are spending on our site when using our virtual try-on and shade finder tools,” Rezabek says.
The sense of fun that virtual try-on provides engages customers to spend more time on the tarte site exploring the great products and learning about the naturally-derived ingredients.“In this period when everyone is at home, our mindset is to bring the store to our customers, which is what our virtual try-on allows us to do,” Rezabek says.
30% Increase in Add-to-Cart
tarte cosmetic has found that customers who interact with their virtual try-on experiences are more likely to add the product to their shopping cart, compared to customers who browse a product without using virtual try-on.
“The ability for our customers to see how a product will look before they buy makes it easier for them to decide to add it to their cart,” Rezabek says.
Double-Digit Reduction in Customer Service Inquiries for Help with Shade Matching
Creating "Wow Moments" from Great AR
Impressive Response to Emails Pointing to Virtual Try-On
Perfect Corp. Proves to Be a Great Technology Partner