Is Technology in Fashion?
Fashion in technology – or Fashtech as its typically referred to – is everywhere these days. For clothing/fashion companies around the world, deciding whether or not to adopt new tech can be a challenge. One of the first things to consider is where adding the technology makes the most sense for your business. What are you looking to accomplish? Does your ecommerce site need some tech improvements to help consumers during the online shopping experience? -or- Are you more focused on automating a supply chain or fulfilment process?
(Learn More About Hands Free Clothes Measuring)
Another question you need to answer is will the chosen tech make enough of a positive impact on your business to pull the trigger? Tech companies promise to deliver the transformative solutions you’ve been missing. The hard part is deciding what to adopt and what to let pass by. You must identify which companies are developing the technology that will make the biggest impact. Technology in fashion is needed now more than ever.
Adding Technology to eCommerce
It is clear that the online apparel market continues to grow while brick and mortar sales decline. One of the contributing factors to retail sales shifting to online is undoubtedly the current Covid pandemic. According to an article published in Forbes in April 2020, U.S. e-commerce sales will hit a projected $709B in 2020 or about 14.5% of total U.S. retail sales, up from $601B, or about 11% of total retail sales, since 2019. This is the perfect time to consider adopting a slick new technology that sets your ecommerce site up for success. There are several types of technologies out there which range from at-home body scanning to questionnaire based sizing and style recommendations. There is one company called Tailored that is taking a slightly different approach.
Improving The Online Clothes Shopping Experience
Tailored has developed a photo recognition, garment-measuring software called Capture. It “captures” the measurements of a garment simply by taking a photograph with any mobile device. Tailored believes every online shopper has at least one article of clothing they consider to be a perfect fit. The measurements gathered from the photo are used to recommend a size in a new garment the retailers sells.
This is different from the other solutions. By photo-measuring a consumers best fitting garment, Capture obtains the consumers exact fit-preference and uses it to make a dimensional size comparison and recommendation. This will enable the customer to sort the online catalog hassle free. Plus, it lets the customer know they are purchasing the correct garment the first time they place an order.
Tailored Makes Sizing Easy
Let’s face it, it is easy to for a consumer to shop for clothing online. At least from a “you don’t have to jump in the car and head to the mall” standpoint. However, it is difficult to pour over countless items and then find the size that fits the way they like. Tailored is focused on delivering a solution to enhance the consumer’s online shopping experience. We know that the consumer will have a more personalized shopping experience if they are finding perfect fitting clothing using Tailored’s technology.
The Returns Problem
Getting the sizing right yields a pretty important benefit as well. Which brings me to my next item…RETURNS! Worldwide, returns cost retailers $60 Billion annually. Customers can order something online and if it doesn’t fit send it back for free. The shipping costs are passed along to the organization. The garment you sent back may not be able to be offered for sale again. Consumer can also be found ordering three sizes of the same garment, hoping that one fits and sending back the others. If your customer purchased clothing at your online store using Tailored’s software, they are far less likely to return that item due to a fit issue. Customers can be sure they receive the item that fits the way they like the very first time they place the order.
Supply Chain Automation
Another area to consider adding some technology in fashion is the supply chain where garments are traditionally hand-measured. For example, clothing is run through a quality inspection where a measurement is taken and recorded by hand. This process is labor intensive and can take several minutes per garment. The capture software performs these measurement tasks in seconds. Additionally, the measurement data is recorded and stored automatically. Which means, you can and record the data at the push of a button. This technology will aid manufacturing and quality assurance teams. It provides a solution that is more effective, accurate and much less time-consuming than the current method. Imagine if your staff could perform tasks in a couple of seconds that currently take several minutes. This would also increase the amount of garments measured without increasing the staff needed.
Resale and Vintage Garments
We have noticed for a while now that people are more excited than ever to shop for gently used or vintage garments. There is no shortage of these types of garments in the world. This is one of the major reasons that Tailored is thrilled to offer Capture to online resellers. Buying used clothes is a more sustainable way forward! It will keep garments out of the landfills and incinerators. Plus shopping for vintage garments allows consumers to find that special garment that no one else has.
Online garment resellers have their own bottlenecks to deal with. They have a lot of clothing coming through the doors that needs to be listed online. What they have discovered is garments that have more information tied to the listing sell better. The most important bit of info is the measurement data. With Capture automating the measuring process, resellers are able to list more items faster. All of the garment that are sitting around the warehouse are not online. Therefore, they are not selling. Adding this one piece of tech to your garment onboarding process is a no brainer. A photo of the garment with the annotated measurement data included is also provided. This lets the consumer know exactly what has been measured.
Tailored Capture – The Easy Way To Measure Clothes
Tailored created the Capture software to make life easier for your organization and to provide consumers a great online shopping experience. Automating these measurement task will not only help you staff, but your customers as well. Additionally, we are very passionate about a more circular economy and want to do our part reducing the amount of waste in the fashion/apparel space. Please reach out if you have any questions about our products and services.