In childhood, you must be very familiar with playing dolls, when you can put on dolls the most fashionable clothes. Later, with the popularity of smartphones, doll clothes were brought to the screen with attractive interfaces and endless fashion items, not limited to just a few fixed clothes in the past. Moreover, with the help of technology, you can now be the one standing in the fitting room and freely put on yourself, not the dolls, beautiful outfits. That “magic” is called a virtual fitting room.
Unlike the virtual fitting room, the offline shopping process usually includes: moving to the store, selecting favorite items, and bringing it to the fitting room. This process will be repeated until you find your favorite outfit and bring it to the counter. This is very time-consuming, (it may take people an entire day). Plus, if you have to line up on busy days, or travel a long distance but can’t buy the item you like, or more troublesome, some stores limit the number of items you can bring into the fitting room so that keep you going in and out constantly, these will make physically shopping an obsession.
Online shopping, though it can save your time and effort, you have to trade with what is called “luck”. You cannot try clothes before buying. Whether the real clothes look like the image, or whether it suits you, it does depend totally on your imagination and luck. Therefore, some retailers on e-commerce websites have used the delivery service as a “mobile fitting room” to satisfy consumers who like to try on and see items in person. These customers are allowed to view the goods, try and offer payment options if satisfied, or return the goods if not. This may temporarily address customer needs but only works for small retailers. The control of goods in and out of large retailers is much more complicated and the return cost is for long-term is the cost that must have been reduced.
If you’re shoppers having the similar “hurt” in the past, or the retailer dealing with those kinds of trouble, don’t worry, because now you can try-on clothes virtually.
Face-to-face retail has the advantage of tactile experience and a physical relationship between products and consumers. Most people still prefer trying clothes on before purchasing. It’s exactly the main reason to bring them to the fashion stores. But high-tech simulations are starting to “copy” the emotional experience of offline shopping by offering many of the same benefits.
In recent years, many software companies have grown the need to solve this problem. They offer a punch of technology-based solutions. Noticeably, one of the most significant solutions is the virtual fitting room. This is a new technology that is expected to support more accurate sizing and fitting choices as well as reduce returns. Let’s scroll down for a sneak peek at this “magic”!
In short and simple words, the virtual fitting app will build a data bank of human body metrics. It is from the action of customers entering that customers enter into online systems. They will use that source to create the presentation of that person’s form, or called “a virtual model”. When shopping online, you can drag the clothing that pops up on the screen and drop it into this virtual model like how you play games. You will get results of how you look in that outfit almost immediately. What’s more, these apps allow you to try directly at a bricks-and-mortar retail store or from your wardrobe. Snap photos of costumes, upload them, then drag and drop. And of course, with the rapid development of technology, these applications are also expected to support mix and match in the near future.
The benefits that a virtual fitting room offers shoppers can be easily seen. Firstly, they can minimize the risks of buying online including fitting and sizing. You will be able to try on clothes virtually. You won’t have to ask yourself questions like “is this skirt too long for me” or “should I buy a green or orange t-shirt”.
Next, when using this app at a physical store, you will not spend too much time cramming for trying clothing. Instead of wearing clothes that hundreds of other people have tried on, now you can try to put your clothes on virtual models and freely ask the shops to provide other sizes or colors of the products you like.
Furthermore, a smart fashion app can also be your smart stylist which can help you mix and match. From now on you will save an extra 15 minutes every morning to sleep instead of trying your best mixing clothing and accessories.
Besides, the virtual fitting room can be considered as a revolution for face-to-face retailers. The first thing you can save is the cost of renting premises. For small shops with only 1-2 fitting rooms that are always overloaded, this application definitely is a salvage. In addition to that, you will no longer deal with return reasons like “I can’t fit these pants”. You will not need to worry about or “the color of this dress doesn’t match my skin”. Obviously, returns decreased, satisfaction increased and sales increased! Last but not least, thanks to the mix and match feature, once buyers select a top from your shop. It will automatically offer them the bottom and accessories from your shop either. So look how fast your revenue is growing!
The virtual fitting room is a simulation of trying on clothes virtually. It’s similar to the dressing room video game at first, but end up with a possible purchase of real clothing. So it’s time for clothing retailers to decide whether to take the lead in embracing new technology or take the wait to be left behind in fashion 2020.
