Fossil Taps Tangiblee for ‘First of Its Kind’ Virtual Try-on Experience
With more consumers turning to their devices to shop, heritage accessories label Fossil has teamed up with Tangiblee, a provider of enterprise-grade immersive shopping experiences and a long-term partner of the accessories brand, to create a more dynamic and immersive online shopping experience.
The new platform, a stackable virtual try-on experience, builds on the success of Fossil’s and Tangiblee’s Virtual Watch Try-On tool — which made users three times more likely to purchase a product after interacting with it.
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“The future of e-commerce is all about experiences that don’t just mimic the in-store environment but surpass it with unique and hyper-personalized immersive solutions, [like Tangiblee’s],” Ryan McLaughlin, director of accounts, enterprise sales at Tangiblee, told WWD.
Fossil’s relationship with Tangiblee started back in 2018 and was initially focused on size comparison. “We’ve continued to partner closely with them over the years and collaboratively seek out progressive opportunities…across multiple categories,” Holly Briedis, chief digital and customer officer at Fossil Group, told WWD. “Tangiblee has been a great partner and leader in this space, producing value quickly and proactively, taking our feedback on their products as a key strategic client.”
The rollout of VTO technologies follows the explosive growth of online sales. According to Statista, approximately 43 percent of U.S.-based consumers said they would prefer to shop mostly online rather than in-store. In fact, from last July to September, retail e-commerce sales in the U.S. hit roughly $284 billion, the highest quarterly revenue in history.
Fossil’s Virtual Watch Try-On tool is a web-based, augmented reality feature for watches. To indulge in the experience, users first measure their wrist width with their phone’s camera. While the calibration step isn’t required, it offers assurance that what’s displayed on their wrist is correctly scaled and properly situated, Tangiblee said.
The second step asks users to upload images of their wrists. Afterward, the watch will be virtually placed on said image. This allows users to engage with the watch by sliding it back and forth on the wrist, tapping the watch to see full dimensions and zooming in on the watch dial.
To utilize the new tool launched late last year, U.S. customers can visit Fossil’s website and click on any bracelet, ring or watch. Afterward, the user will click the “stacking” toggle in the right corner of the “try on and compare size” call to action. Next, they tap the “stack” toggle, allowing the multicategory stacking, or MCS, to “come to life,” McLaughlin said.
“Two rings, one bracelet and one watch populate on an interactive model, offering the users a baseline style on top of which they can build or adjust by selecting products from the pre-curated offerings within the carousel…to best fit their try-on needs,” McLaughlin said. “Once they’ve completed building their unique assortment, the user taps the ‘add look to cart’ button, selects the appropriate product sizes from the ‘look overview’ page, then clicks the ‘add look to cart’ button again to add everything to the cart.”
By implementing MCS, the Richardson, Texas-headquartered brand anticipates seeing fewer returns since customers can now “coordinate a look before purchase.” Additionally, Fossil believes the new tool will help bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping as customers now have better context around size, shape and style.
“Think of [our new feature] as staging a home, where staged furniture allows buyers to see the possibilities of how a house could look,” Kaitlin Lee, director of product management at Fossil Group, told WWD. “MCS [is the same idea], allowing customers to be more confident and gain excitement for exactly how things will look when styled together.”
Fossil said it will soon offer MCS to its global consumers. Additionally, the brand will be adding necklaces and earrings to the stackable experience, with the goal of allowing consumers to build a complete look across all jewelry and watch categories.
“It’s exciting to take another step toward better integrating and enhancing the online customer experience, creating more of a bridge between the store and digital shopping environment and pushing the boundaries of what’s available for customers today,” Briedis said. “For us, it’s all about making shopping for Fossil products continually more fun and engaging, whether you come to the brand via a physical store, social or our website.”
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