Inditex Brand Taps 3DLook for Fit Tech Experience
Bershka sees the value in phone-based fit tech.
The Inditex-owned brand has teamed up with virtual fitting room company 3DLook to give consumers the chance to see what garments will look like on their bodies while they shop online.
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To use the tool, all consumers need is a smartphone. The artificial intelligence-integrated technology requires consumers to snap two photos of themselves: one from the front, and one from the side. A voice assistant helps pose consumers, giving them advice about where to place their arms and how close to the camera they should stand.
From there, consumers can see a mockup of the garment on their body, as well as a size recommendation based on data the company’s proprietary YourFit technology collected about the measurements of their body.
But shoppers won’t be the only ones to benefit from the sizing and visualization features, said Whitney Cathcart, 3DLook’s co-founder and chief commercial officer, said.
The Dickies partner aims to whittle away at retail’s reverse logistics problem, she noted. On average, brands working with 3DLook have seen a 6 percent reduction in returns. Research firm Coresight released data in April with 3DLook that shows that the average return rate for online apparel in the U.S. stands at 24.4 percent.
Cathcart said while receiving the correct size the first time helps reduce returns, the technology also proactively prevents consumers from having to make returns at all.
“The biggest thing that we’re answering for customers is, ‘I wonder what size to buy,’ and ‘I wonder what this is going to look like on me.’ That impact is enormous in purchase because if we’re giving you confidence to buy [one] size, we’re reducing bracketing. We’re reducing return rates, and we’re engaging you with a visualization,” Cathcart said.
That could have a positive effect on retailers’ environmental efforts, too.
“No company, whether it’s Inditex or any fashion brand or retailer today, can claim themselves to have sustainable operations if they are running high return rates. It’s impossible,” Cathcart said.
The technology also gives retailers access to anonymized information on what its consumers’ bodies actually look like. Having that information could have major impacts on brands’ manufacturing processes and decisions, Cathcart noted.
“2023 is the first year I have seen big retailers come to us and ask us to do body data analysis and help them to understand what their customers look like, so that they can begin to actually understand where their fit problems are,” she said. “Right now, if you’re a brand, you’re creating clothing for one body shape, and we are not one body shape; we are many body shapes. The old way of creating clothing is not going to be the new way of creating clothing, and really smart retailers are honing in on this and in order to fix it at the product development level.”
Inditex did not immediately return Sourcing Journal’s requests for comment on the partnership.
As personalization has taken a front seat for retailers hoping to up their customer experience game, a number of brands have shown an interest in virtual try-on technologies, many of them specifically focused on correct sizing for consumers.
John Lewis has reported impressive results from its collaboration with Zyler, which allows consumers to customize an avatar with their headshot and sizing details.
Meanwhile, Google released virtual try-on technology this year; it uses generative AI to show consumers what a product might look like on a model with a comparable body shape. The tech mogul has already partnered with Anthropologie, Everlane and H&M on the initiative.
Cathcart told Sourcing Journal that the visualization technology works best for staples, like bottoms and tops. It currently doesn’t yet work well for tighter-fitting items, like swimwear, she said; however, the Unisync partner’s YourFit technology, which specifically identifies what size a consumer should select, does work on items that may not yet be supported by the visualization feature.
Cathcart said while consumers can currently use the technology on a limited subset of items on the Bershka website, they “will see expansion” in the future.
