Retail Tech: Yoox Net-A-Porter Pilots Virtual Try-On, ABG Taps AI Merchandising

Glenn Taylor
·11 min read

The weekly Retail Tech Roundup compiles technology news across the supply chain, manufacturing, retail, e-commerce, logistics and fulfillment sectors.

E-Commerce

Authentic Brands/Fast Simon

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Authentic Brands Group, the brand development firm that owns fashion labels including Reebok, Brooks Brothers, Barneys New York and Aeropostale, has partnered with Fast Simon, an Israel-based technology provider of AI-powered shopping optimization tools.

Authentic-owned brands such as Juicy Couture, Fredericks of Hollywood, Iconic Images Gallery, as well as its newly launched Authentic.com, currently use Fast Simon’s technology to enhance merchandising, search and personalization within their e-commerce sites.

Fast Simon provides each brands’ online store the ability to enhance merchandising with smart collections and visual merchandising, along with improving search results with AI-powered vector search. Additionally, the partnership offers the brands the opportunity to personalize product recommendations and visual discovery for cross-sell and upsell.

“The level of optimization Fast Simon provides helps our brands provide better online shopping experiences to consumers,” said Alex Baillargeon, senior vice president, digital at Authentic Brands Group in a statement. “We’re excited to work together with Fast Simon to boost customer engagement and sales across our brands.”

Fast Simon is unrelated to mall operator Simon Property Group, Authentic Brands Group’s strategic partner in the Sparc joint venture.

Virtual try-on

Yoox Net-A-Porter

Luxury fashion company Yoox Net-A-Porter has launched an inaugural virtual try-on pilot, rolling out the technology for 90 styles across the Mr P. Permanent collection available on Mr Porter. The try-on will account for 70 percent of the collection.

The initiative is built to bolster the e-commerce luxury seller’s tailoring experiences, while simultaneously seeking to reduce the need for customers to return items.

Through the new size simulator tool, customers can create a 3D avatar that mirrors their own measurements, either through step-by-step guidance or by providing their clothing sizes from favorite fashion brands. In seconds, they can see how a garment will look on their body, to visualize their ideal fit and determine whether the product is the right match for them.

Yoox Net-A-Porter says its customer insights confirm that size and fit are the primary reasons for returns. As such, the retailer will track total returns volume over a six-month trial. The technology is designed to support growing consumer appetite for more conscious shopping, as 90 percent of the luxury fashion company’s customers say they favor retailers that help them to reduce returns, while 83 percent are trying to shop more intentionally to avoid sending items back.

“We have been closely following developments in virtual try-on technology for a while, in search of slick and user-friendly functionality. We are excited to launch our tool which we believe is a fantastic and intuitive shopping aid,” said Alison Loehnis, ad interim CEO, Yoox Net-A-Porter. “Customers of Mr P. will be able to clearly visualize the look, fit and drape of pieces from a variety of different angles, making the selection process easier than ever.”

Virtual try-on will be piloted internationally in six languages: English, Italian, German, Japanese, Korean and Arabic. The tool is being applied across the Mr. P Permanent range, which the retailer calls an ideal candidate since the collection’s evergreen styles and men’s wardrobe essentials are available for extended periods.

Over the past two years, Yoox Net-A-Porter has successfully launched 3D asset trials for fine watches and accessories. Virtual try-on is the next phase of the business’ 3D strategy, now testing the customer benefits of this technology for apparel.

Fulfillment

Draper James/Cart.com

Draper James, the fashion and lifestyle brand founded by actress and entrepreneur Reese Witherspoon, has selected Cart.com as its U.S. fulfillment partner. With Cart.com’s technology-enabled logistics network and third-party logistics (3PL) capabilities Draper James aims to simplify omnichannel fulfillment, improve customer experience and meet increasing consumer demand.

Cart.com’s 3PL is built to enable B2C, D2C and B2B companies to automate and simplify mission-critical supply chain operations, reduce costs and achieve real-time order and inventory visibility.

The company’s proprietary software, including its Constellation Order Management System (OMS) and warehouse management technology, are deployed alongside a variety of automated systems to drive precision and productivity across its nationwide network of omnichannel facilities.

“At Draper James, we hold ourselves to a high standard, and we expect the same of our fulfillment partner,” said Sarah Foley, chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Draper James. “Cart.com’s demonstrated expertise in supporting leading apparel brands, coupled with its robust technological capabilities, allows us to deliver a high-quality customer experience, while carefully managing fulfillment costs.”

Cart.com provides both physical and digital infrastructure in an effort to unify operations across channels, supporting over 6,000 customers and 75 million orders per year. the company operates 14 omnichannel fulfillment centers nationwide.

ERP

Aptean/Momentus

Aptean, an enterprise software solutions provider for manufacturers and distributors, has acquired Momentis, a provider of purpose-built software solutions designed for the fashion, apparel, footwear, textile and accessories industries. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

With the acquisition of Momentis, Aptean can add new capabilities to its fashion and apparel offerings for wholesalers, importers, manufacturers and self-sourcing retailers.

Founded in 1994 and headquartered in Montreal, Momentis provides software designed to manage enterprise-wide business processes, streamline efficiency, increase profitability and provide real-time operational insights. The technology delivers an integrated suite of cloud-based solutions including product lifecycle management (PLM), sales order management, sourcing and logistics, warehouse management, financial management and business intelligence.

The Momentis platform is designed to manage operations across the entire fashion and apparel supply chain. The platform is used by over 250 leading fashion and apparel brands and supports more than $7 billion of annual order volume.

Search

Algolia

Algolia, an end-to-end AI-powered search platform, has unveiled the launch of a new “Looking Similar” capability as part of its AI Recommendations solution.

Looking Similar is an AI model that analyzes images in a retailer’s catalog to find and recommend other items that are visually similar in an effort to enhance retail conversion rates.

With Looking Similar, users can find items faster that fit a specific theme, vibe, style, mood or space in the same way that a shopper might visually explore products in a brick-and-mortar store. These visual recommendations are particularly useful for shoppers when they come across out-of-stock items, are simply looking for inspiration, or find a style they like but want differently priced options.

Retailers and marketplaces can implement Algolia’s Looking Similar in minutes, and can analyze a catalog in seconds to generate hundreds of recommendations for each item. These recommendations can be further refined based on a number of preferred attributes such as “color”, “price” and “size” further empowering merchandisers.

Looking Similar also empowers retailers to establish thresholds for the “Similarity” of image matches, allowing them to create custom filters, specify the number of recommendations to be displayed and ensure a specific level of image match similarity.

Robotics

Dexory

Dexory, a provider of AI and autonomous robotics solutions, has announced its strategic expansion into the North American market.

The company is already working with global logistics partners with a significant U.S. presence such as DB Schenker and Maersk. To lead the expansion, Todd Boone has joined the team as its head of North American business.

Dexory’s expansion comes as end customers continue to demand quicker turnaround times while warehouses address needs for improved space utilization and increased efficiencies—all while wrestling with ongoing labor scarcity.

The company combines analytics with autonomous robots capable of capturing rich image and sensor data from across a warehouse. This combination can provide comprehensive visibility across warehouses of any size, and connect them across the global supply chain through Dexory’s digital platform, DexoryView.

Dexory’s technology is built to allow businesses to understand, in real-time, what happens in their warehousing operations, which the company says is imperative to closing the “visibility gap” that occurs when there is a misalignment between expectations and reality.

Starship Technologies

Starship Technologies, a provider of autonomous delivery robots in the U.S. and Europe, has raised a $90 million funding round co-led by investment firms Plural and Iconical.

The new funding, which brings the total raised by Starship to $230 million since its creation in 2014, will be used by the company to aid in global expansion

Launched in 2014, Starship’s delivery robots have become a common sight on streets across Europe and the US and the company is now the world’s leading autonomous delivery service, making more than six million deliveries and transforming last-mile delivery. Found in 80 locations across the world including the US, UK, Germany, Denmark, Estonia and Finland, the robots use less energy than humans* to deliver takeaways, grocery orders, tools and corporate documents to customers’ doors.

Delivery

Shadowfax

India-based on-demand delivery service Shadowfax has raised $100 million in a Series E funding round led by private equity firm TPG NewQuest.

Shadowfax’s network reaches over 2,500 cities in the country, as well as more than 15,000 zip codes. The company says it makes over 2 million packages delivery each day and has amassed over 3.5 million registered users. The company says it has annual revenue growth of 35 percent.

The technology aims to tackle the country’s fragmented last-mile delivery infrastructure, where consumer delivery networks are typically inefficient and struggle with complex urban environments and inconsistent service quality. This can lead to delays, elevated costs and frustration, especially for small businesses that otherwise don’t have sophisticated delivery capabilities.

The company’s logistics and delivery network includes more than 125,000 monthly active delivery personnel, and works with numerous firms, including Flipkart and e-commerce marketplace Meesho.

Founded in 2015, Shadowfax has raised more than $220 million in primary and secondary transactions.

Shadowfax did not disclose the valuation at which it raised the funds. It was last valued at $632 million, as of April 2022, per data from investment tracker Tracxn.

In-store retail

Crisp

Retail analytics software Crisp has raised $50 million in new capital through a $20 million Series B extension round and up to $30 million in debt financing. Existing investors including Blue Cloud Ventures, FirstMark Capital, Spring Capital and 3L participated in the equity round.

TriplePoint Capital provided debt to refinance existing debt and to fund both operating activities and continued acquisitions.

Crisp previously raised a total of $60 million in equity, bringing the total equity raised to $80 million. The new funding will support the company’s growth efforts, product development and expansion into new markets and additional acquisitions. The round also builds on the company’s recent acquisition of Atlas Technology Group.

Since its inception in 2017, Crisp has evolved its platform to designed to provide brands and distributors with the latest store and shelf-level data from leading retailers. This data provides visibility into actual inventory and sales down to the exact location of every item. These insights can enable brands and retailers to optimize the manufacturing, distribution, merchandising and marketing of CPG products through every retail channel.

With Crisp’s technology, brands can ideally better forecast demand, maintain stock levels, avoid overstocks and markdowns and match marketing spend to the local regions with the best sales potential.

More than 700 CPG brands leverage the Crisp platform to strengthen relationships with retail partners by better supporting sales and inventory management across all channels. Crisp’s recent acquisition of Atlas Technology Group based in Bentonville, Ark., home of Walmart’s headquarters, added 100 large CPG enterprise customers to the company’s cloud-based platform.

Social commerce

Bazaarvoice

Bazaarvoice, a platform for full-funnel authentic user-generated content (UGC) and social commerce solutions, has introduced three new capabilities powered by Bazaarvoice HarmonyAI, the engine fueling the company’s current and upcoming AI-driven capabilities.

New HarmonyAI-enhanced capabilities within Bazaarvoice products include Creator Discovery, Photo Captions for Instagram for Social Commerce and Content Coach for Influenster community members.

Creator Discovery is a solution that helps social media and marketing teams find the right creators to work with when they enter text, images or mood boards into a search query. Then, AI meticulously analyzes the query, recommending creators that fit their requirements, in an effort to save them the time of searching manually.

Photo Captions for Instagram for Social Commerce is built to enable social media managers to create photo captions and hashtags for brand-owned social posts. This solution can benefit users because the AI analyzes not only product tags and captions from the brand’s recent posts, but also the photos in those posts. The feature then automatically generates personalized photo captions that match the brand’s tone and voice, reducing the burden on the social media manager.

Content Coach is designed to help guide Bazaarvoice’s Influenster community of over 8.5 million global members to create higher-quality content through AI-powered suggestions on review topics and gamifying the review-writing experience. Bazaarvoice can tap into this community to gather more data that can help train these AI models more accurately. Consumers end up with less pressure that may come from writing a review, helping to drive up review quality and quantity.

Bazaarvoice says HarmonyAI was developed with brands, retailers, shoppers and consumers in mind. The engine is built to enhance the shopping experience by leveraging billions of data points to deliver relevant content to consumers effectively. Additionally, it can enable brands and retailers to allocate more time to other priorities by automating certain tasks through AI-driven solutions.