Nobody talks about returns until they eat the margin. Then everyone talks about nothing else.
The interesting AR question is not only does it sell more. It is does it get returned less. Several brands say yes, and the mechanism is believable. AR sets better expectations. A shopper who has seen the chair in their room, the glasses on their face, or the shade on their skin is less likely to be surprised at unboxing, and surprises cause returns. The effect is strongest where returns come from expectation mismatch rather than quality: wrong size, wrong color, wrong fit in the space. AR cannot fix a bad product. No honest case study claims it does.
I would stay skeptical about methodology, and you should too. The right comparison is return rates for AR users versus non-users on comparable products, not overall returns drifting down for unrelated reasons. The brands that publish return data tend to be the ones that measured carefully, which is itself a good credibility signal. Demand the method, not just the headline. That is the standard a mobile app to measure AR performance would hold you to anyway.
Dig through the augmented reality retail case studies and the return story is usually there as a quiet footnote to the conversion story. It deserves better than a footnote. My read: return reduction might be the underrated half of AR's ROI. Conversion lifts get headlines, but returns hit revenue and cost at the same time. A brand that converts slightly better and returns significantly less is winning twice.
ARCommerce collects published AR results from 68 brands, including the ones that shared return-rate numbers.
Want to figure out what AR could do for your return rate? I consult e-commerce brands on AR implementation at arcommerce.fyi.