FILE – In this March 9, 2015 file photo, event attendees get a look at varieties of Apple Watch on display in the demo room after an Apple event in San Francisco. Apple Watch, available for pre-order on Friday, April 10, comes with a choice of watch case, band and size _ there are 54 possible configurations in all. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File) (AP)
AR and AI promise to cut the cost of returns and bring the store into your home.
Billions of dollars of unwanted clothing are returned by consumers every year, taking full advantage of the free shipping offered by many online retailers. A report by Body Labs, an artificial intelligence startup acquired by Amazon in 2017, claimed $62.4 billion worth of clothing was returned worldwide in 2015.
That figure accounts for 23 percent of all clothing bought online, with the majority of consumers (77 percent) citing a poor fit as the biggest reason for returning the items. A year later, in 2016, a survey commissioned by the BBC found 63 percent of buyers of women’s clothing online had returned at least one item.
While it is usually free for the shopper to return the unwanted goods – often via a next-day shipping service with their money promptly returned – the tab is picked up by the retailer. On top of the shipping fee, there is also the environmental damage to consider, as well as the resources consumed by receiving the rejected item, inspecting it, repackaging and returning it to the warehouse, ready to be bought again.
According to a report by the Financial Times in 2016, returned purchases are passed through an average of seven pairs of hands before they are relisted for sale, and the process can cost retailers double or even triple the original shipping charge.
The counterattack against picky consumers is two-pronged. First, artificial intelligence can help offer up suggestions to both shoppers and retailers. When executed successfully, the former is less likely to pick something which won’t fit or look right, and the latter puts its trust in AI to pick the season’s most popular items from designers and wholesalers.
Secondly, augmented reality is poised to help shoppers see how items look on them, without placing huge online orders with the intention of returning most of it at the expense of the retailer. As well as clothes, AR can lend a helping hand when it comes to picking out glasses and shoes, too.
But unlike purchasing a new book or Blu-ray from Amazon, where you know precisely what you will get, clothing drops onto your doormat with huge variables. Does it fit? Is the color the same as you were expecting? How does the fabric feel? Does it really fit?
“Unlike other goods, buying clothes online continues to be marred by consumer hesitation,” Jo Allison, consumer behavioral analyst at Canvas8, a market researcher, tells GearBrain, adding: “The main thing consumers fear is the risk of not getting what they envisioned. That’s why the successful companies have no-questions-asked return policies and next-day shipping.”
But some consumers treat these perks as “part of their changing room experience,” Allison adds, which lands retailers with costs for shipping, handling, credit card processing fees, repackaging, and restocking each and every time. As a result, “brands are looking to AR to help their customers shop without attending actual stores.”
A buzzword to introduce at this point is ‘blended reality’, and more specifically the blended-reality mirror, or ‘magic mirror’ as some retailers call their fitting-room gadgets. For now, these are mostly installed in the fitting rooms of clothes stores, so you’ll still need to get off the couch and go shopping instead of using AR at home.
One of the most impressive is the Memory Mirror from Memomi, a Palo Alto, California startup founded in 2013. The color of clothes you wear in front of the Memomi mirror can be changed with a tap of the companion smartphone app.
The logic here is, if you’re happy with the fit of a dress but want to try a different size, you can do so with the tap of a screen instead of changing, retrieving it from the shop floor, and returning to the fitting room. The company even claims patterns can be changed, and you can add virtual accessories to the outfit.
As with other smart mirrors, you can snap images and take video of yourself, then download them, send to friends for advice, or compare one outfit on a display behind the two-way mirror with the one you’re wearing.
Isabelle Ohnemus – founder and CEO of EyeFitU, a company which creates clothes sizing software – told GearBrain how AR mirrors by Zara work: “In the clothing industry Zara appears to be leading the way with its AR displays. The customer can hold their phone up to a sensor either in-store or through a shop window to see models wearing garments and then click through to purchase. This particular use of AR is the perfect example of the marriage of the digital and physical creating a seamless shopping experience.”
,
Source: Salon