Technological applications in retail are advancing at lightning speed and are poised to revolutionise the future of how we shop, according to J. Walter Thompson Intelligence’s Innovation Group’s annual trend report, Future 100.
Augmented at-home shopping is taking the guesswork out of online ordering, the report says. It flags up Japanese e-commerce giant Zozo, which is creating digital avatars of shoppers to revolutionise custom-fit clothing. In July, it announced it would be selling custom-fit basics including T-shirts and jeans.
The brand sends shoppers a bodysuit with embedded sensors that measure the wearer to create a personalised, digital avatar. Algorithms then process your specific measurements and compare them to a database to create bespoke items tailored to the individual. “The time where people adapt to clothing is over,” says Yusaku Maezawa, Zozo’s founder and CEO. “This is the new era where clothes adapt to people.”
Meanwhile, augmented reality startup Vyking is also leveraging imaging technology to advance the e-commerce market. The company’s newest offering, announced in May and still in development at the time of writing, uses digital imaging to estimate a customer’s shoe size and virtually try on the shoes. Users point their phone’s camera at their foot and an interactive hologram of the shoe will appear as if it’s being worn, moving with the foot for different angles.
In Asia, Alibaba is driving innovation with new tech-enhanced shopping approaches featuring interactive interfaces, experiences and payments. Guess partnered with the e-commerce giant in July to test out a new smart-store model. The store was outfitted with Alibaba’s FashionAI technology, which uses computer imaging to help shoppers assemble an entire outfit. Smart mirrors can recognise the colour, style and traits of an item in a shopper’s hand to suggest other pieces and styles. Shoppers can also select other items to try via the smart mirror, and can track the items they tried on, purchased, or saved for later via an accompanying app.
Alibaba also partnered with Tmall and Innisfree to create an augmented beauty shopping experience that offers virtual makeup application, digital skin analysis for personalised product recommendations, and smart shelves with touchscreens displaying additional product information.