GlassesUSA.com has come up with a new way of using artificial intelligence (AI) to give its consumers personalized views of its more than 10,000 SKUs — and what they look like on the consumer.

About 60% of the retailer’s eyewear catalog consists of GlassesUSA.com-exclusive designs. The remaining 40% include popular brands including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Prada and Gucci. Consumers have to figure out what size, fit and prescription they need, in addition to what shape they prefer and the material for their frames.

“Buying glasses online is not necessarily the easiest purchase you can make,” chief marketing officer Arie Tom told Digital Commerce 360.

That’s part of what led GlassesUSA.com to develop a proprietary new tool in-house, which it calls “Pairfect Match AI.” The tool scans a consumer’s face, measuring different points including the jawline, pupil distance, hairline, skin ton and nose bridge. Then, it matches consumers with glasses that match their faces. After that, GlassesUSA.com also presents the pairs it suggests to the consumer using augmented reality, allowing the consumer to see what the frames would look like on their own faces.

Before this tool, Tom said, the process would work differently. A customer would go to a store and choose from hundreds of frames — even more if shopping online — and see what fits their face shape, style preferences and other needs.

“The entire process is not that ideal because it’s very manual,” Tom told Digital Commerce 360. “You need to browse through so many frames, have all the no guesswork of identifying what fits your face, what looks good on you and so on.”

How the GlassesUSA Pairfect Match AI tool works

Consumers browsing GlassesUSA.com on their mobile phones have the option to scan their faces using their device’s camera. And on both mobile and desktop, the Pairfect Match AI tool includes a quiz component that helps GlassesUSA determine a consumer’s preferences and what they’re looking for.

It asks if the consumer is looking for:

• eyeglasses, sunglasses or both
• plastic/acetate, metallic, or any material for frames
• if they’re looking at masculine styles, feminine styles or both
• which shade of frame they want, such as “dark, tortoise,” “colorful” or “neutral, clear”

It then curates 10 matches, which consumers can see on the site upon entering their email. The tool also gives consumers the option to show more results, automatically filtering search results based on the quiz and/or scan’s findings.

“Now the thing with glasses, eventually it’s an accessory,” Tom said. “It’s partial fashion accessory, partial medical device that improves your vision. And it’s not a “one fit suits all.” It fits on our prime real estate: our face. It influences not only how you see the world, it also influences how the world sees you.”

The Pairfect Match AI tool from GlassesUSA suggests frames based on consumers’ preferences and facial structure.

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