Applied Series: Fashion Stores of the Future with Fit:Match, Cappasity & ShowcaseX

Building Tech Better Retail Experiences
Joining Von N. Ruzive and Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, co-authors of Fashion Tech Applied, are Hillary Littleton, Head of Marketing at FIT:MATCH,  Elina Minina, CBDO at Cappasity, and Charles Wilders, CEO at Showcase X, to discuss how retail experiences are being augmented by technologies.  The panel unpacks how tech like 3D modeling, AI, and augmented reality are reconfiguring the online and offline retail experiences. From creating your digital twin to find that impeccably fitting garment, to the role of AR holograms in building consumer trust, and why it's a combination of tech that will be make better shopping journeys. 

Fashion Stores of the Future
The panel shares invaluable insights from extensive R&D, proving that the success of tech in fashion hinges on solving genuine customer pain points and providing a shopping experience that feels personal and powerful. We confront the real struggles brands face, from budgetary restraints to the steep learning curve in harnessing these technologies.  The episode looks into a future where your shopping journey might be led by your smartphone, and we unravel how generational shifts are leading brands to recalibrate for a tech-savvy audience. What does your fashion store of the future look like?

This episode was originally recorded as a webinar on LinkedIn live.

Find out out about guest speakers in the links below:

• Hillary Littleton from FIT:MATCH
• Elina Minina from Cappasity
• Charles Wilders from Showcase X

*EXCLUSIVE OFFER* -20% discount for podcast listeners on the printed or ebook of Fashion Tech Applied. Purchase your copy at Springer here using the discount code*: 08cWPRlx1J7prE

*Offer ends end June 2024

Transcript

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 0:03

Fashion Tech Applied is published, my co-authored book taking you through six chapters and covering the technologies and innovations powering the fashion industry. I'm Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, founder and CEO of Beyond Form, and welcome to the special podcast series Applied. Each episode, I'll be sitting down with incredible fashion tech professionals that are featured inside the book. Today's episode is a panel discussion exploring fashion stores of the future, taking me back to the kinds of discussions that I used to have when running The Dandy Lab, my previous retail lab. Joined by my co-author of the book, we sit down with Hilary Littleton of Fit: Match, Elina Minina of Cappasity and Charles Wilders of Showcase X. The fashion tech solutions are featured in chapters four and five respectively, and in this discussion we drill down on how brands can really excite, engage and delight their customers through online and offline retail experiences.

Hilary Littleton: 0:59

We're seeing a 6x increase in conversion rate, a 20 to 30% increase in average order value, and then my favorite statistic is an 80% drop in returns Well thought through technologies that are integrated to whether it's online or an offline store.

Elina Menina: 1:17

The customer feels like the brand is taking care of him, of his time, valuable money that they're spending with them, and it's always nice when you feel that satisfaction.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:27

Let's get into the conversation on this episode of Venturing into Fashion Tech.

Von Ruzive: 1:31

I'm V on and obviously, as Peter said, we are co-authors for Fashion Tech Applied, and if you haven't got your copy yet, I don't know what you're waiting for, but if you haven't been to any of our webinars, we've basically been speaking to the individuals who have actually been featured in the book, and this book is all about how technology can be applied to the fashion industry throughout the whole supply chain. So it's super exciting and you get a little glimpse of that today with this conversation, with this panel. So we will just start off with just one liners with our panel today, and just so that you guys know again who we have invited. So I'll just start off with Elena, very excited to be here.

Elina Menina: 2:15

Thank you for inviting and having us and making us a part of the book. I'm CBDO and co-founder of Capacity. Capacity is a platform that helps brands, retailers, anyone who has an online store, to create 3D 360 AR visualizations and integrate them into online stores. Great Thank you.

Von Ruzive: 2:36

Hilary, if you can also introduce us.

Hilary Littleton: 2:38

Hi, thank you. It's great to be here. I'm Hilary Littleton, head of marketing at Fitmatch AI, so I guess, in one line, I would say that we democratize access to 3D technologies so industry leaders around the world in different sectors can make more confident decisions and optimize outcomes. So, most notably, why we're here is our award-winning retail tech solutions for both in-store and online.

Von Ruzive: 3:09

Yeah, great, and last but not least, charles.

Charles Wilders: 3:12

It's a pleasure to be here and it's very, very exciting to be featured in the book as well. So I'm Charles, co-founder and CEO of now ShowcaseX, formerly known as Outerworld. So we are disrupting 2D e-commerce fashion by empowering brands to display products in immersive augmented reality. We do that via our flagship app, and we also are working on direct web integration.

Von Ruzive: 3:40

Thank you guys all for the introduction, so that everyone could know who you guys are. We'll just dive in straight to the first question, which is obviously about today's theme for the webinar, which is what did you guys notice about the physical or digital shopping experiences that made you guys really get involved with what you guys are now doing, what you've just described, and how is this being applied to these experiences?

Hilary Littleton: 4:08

Our patented technology is around using 3D shape and that is really not anywhere on the market and that's exactly why it was made. We feel that finding your size is a 3D problem because our bodies are 3D, and so where we felt like other solutions in the market kind of fell short is that they were using 2D, which means like a tape measure like the circumference of you, but it wasn't accounting for any shape or tissue density or volume that makes up like real bodies shape or tissue density or volume that makes up like real bodies. So that's why our chief data scientists created the patented methodology that is used at FitMatch, because it does actually measure a user's 3D shape.

Hilary Littleton: 4:55

At the consumer angle, we're really providing a personalized, hands-on experience. It's also quick and efficient. You can see it's a one-second scan, so you can't really get better than that. And then for brands, our tech is really setting them apart right as customers walk in and see that it's there. So that's new and exciting and immersive and it kind of puts them on the map and that's what we've been hearing too. Like I said, kind of set them apart in the very saturated retail space. That then builds long-term loyalty and virality with consumers. And then, of course, logistically, it provides a really quick and seamless way for their associates to service the customers in a more personalized way and close more sales. So I always like to say we don't replace any store staff. We are just a tool for them to help or for them to sell more efficiently.

Von Ruzive: 5:51

Yeah well, thank you so much for that.

Von Ruzive: 5:53

It's great to obviously see this technology, as we've obviously been writing about this in the book.

Von Ruzive: 5:57

It has been super interesting to learn a lot more about the insights behind this, as well as how the technology actually works with different brands, and think what one of the interesting things that you mentioned there was about how this is a tool measuring 3D bodies, as this is exactly what we are. We're all 3D, so that's obviously very important when it comes to accuracy and how then you can actually shop for the right sizes, and we're all different body types as well, right? So one of the things that really sticks out for Fitmatch is that it doesn't only just give you body measurements, but also the discrepancies. If we're looking at, you know, the Fenty Savage collection that was launched by Rihanna, obviously Fitmatch was actually partnered with them for the fitting rooms, and in this case, when you're working with underwear and bras, we're all very different in that sense. So, having a technology that looks at the discrepancies and not just you're a size S, you're a size M, etc. You're really able to really capture what those 3D bodies should be wearing.

Hilary Littleton: 7:08

The cool thing about it is like behind the scenes, the customer sees their matches pop up in like three seconds, but what happens behind the scenes is that patented algorithm actually gets to work and it takes that incoming consumer scan and actually matches them back to a previous body that scanned with us, that has size validated for them and finds what we call a digital twin. So that's what's happening on the back end your body. Like I said, we take 3D shape into account and we actually match you to another 3D shape that's most similar to you, that's already validated that size. So then that's how we can present you that size within seconds.

Von Ruzive: 7:48

We will go next to Elena. So from Capacity. So I've actually personally worked with Capacity on my brand, looking at augmented reality, so AR holograms, specifically, and just this immersive shopping experience. So now we're moving on to the online, versus what we've just spoken about, which is embedding technology into the physical. So in this case, looking at an online store, what would you say is you know, how did you, what did you notice?

Elina Menina: 8:18

that you know really made capacity, what it is today, in order to change that online shopping experience and how is it actually embedded now into that I would say that the main issue between online shopping and offline shopping is the trust, because all the content that we have online kind of lost trust over time, because obviously we're trying to show our products from the most appealing side and it kind of does a bit of a harm in this case, because when people we've all been there we buy things, we think they look this way and then in the end, we get completely different things in mail.

Elina Menina: 8:59

What it leaves us is with bad customer experience. So that's where we were coming from when we were creating our solution as well, but we were also thinking about realistic quality, how this can help clients to make better choices and less returns and be more happy with what they buy online. So we've created an approach that helps digitize realistic products and show their real texture. So we're working with real products, digitizing them as fast as possible and easily integrating them online and so that it is easy to use them and you know it gives the best idea of what you're actually buying. It gives the best idea of what you're actually buying, which obviously is going to make the shopping experience faster and more effective, as I would say, which also is going to lead to more people coming back and trusting the format in general, what have been the most challenging parts for you guys all?

Von Ruzive: 10:03

Because obviously everything we've discussed so far seems all great, all the benefits of what these technologies can do, but what are the challenges that come with introducing these technologies in this space? I will start off, maybe, with Hillary.

Hilary Littleton: 10:19

I think for us just continuing to prioritize the fast pace at which users want our tech and to really keep up with that speed has been a challenge. It's a good problem to have, right. I mean, we've heard a huge desire for more of the insights that Fitmatch can provide, just outside of a size recommendation. Users are really quite interested in learning more about their bodies. They love seeing this body data that we can provide in an anonymized way. Of course, we don't take any photos or videos, so their privacy is obviously protected, but we're really seeing that they want more visualizations and data served back. So that's why we're actually creating our own body transformation app so that will have different visualizations after they scan, in addition to providing a size recommendation, so they can kind of explore more and, you know, set goals for themselves that they are, you know, trying to hit a milestone or whatever.

Hilary Littleton: 11:20

But I think, just yeah, keeping up with the excitement that we're hearing from our users. But I think, just yeah, keeping up with the excitement that we're hearing from our users. Body insights are also very broad. People are excited about them, but it's our job to really focus in on exactly those data points that you know the mass market does want and are going to use. So we are building a pretty robust product roadmap with all of that feedback, are building a pretty robust product roadmap with all of that feedback. So just knowing that you know people want it now has been kind of the fire that keeps us going and we're just challenging ourselves to move faster.

Von Ruzive: 11:55

Yeah, thank you so much. Maybe Charles.

Charles Wilders: 11:57

I would probably agree to an extent with Hillary the issue of scalability and being able to actually, particularly with 3D models, for example, to be able to deliver a whole collection at the pace that brands are coming to us wanting these immersive experiences.

Charles Wilders: 12:16

So we've started, you know, harnessing AI to actually start generating 3D models a lot faster while keeping that same level of quality.

Charles Wilders: 12:26

So that's one thing I would probably say. Another aspect is the fact that we're actually based here in Milan at the moment having been invested in here and having been part of the Stylet Accelerator here in Italy, I would say is actually the point of education for the brands and actually the extent of their understanding of what augmented reality is and the power that it can deliver for them when they're showing their products to their customers. So really it's kind of our first job always when talking to a brand or engaging in that conversation is really kind of explaining what this technology is and how it can actually be harnessed in a really efficient and effective way. And there's still a lot of hesitation in the industry about, for example, the quality, whereas we've actually created 4K HDR augmented reality, so we can overcome a lot of the pushback that brands might have and our job really is at the moment to explain how we do that and um and delivering that value for the brands. Uh, on the level that we know we can, and I like that obviously.

Von Ruzive: 13:41

Again, you mentioned you know what um users are actually wanting again being user-centered, with you know what, what you're delivering to individuals, um, and yeah, it's great that you're based in milan. I wish I could visit there at some point yeah, of course you're always welcome, von um.

Charles Wilders: 13:58

Yeah, just picking up on that point that you mentioned there, uh, a very significant thing that we're doing at the moment is actually, uh, building the data point and the metrics. Um of you know how to actually measure a level of engagement when a consumer is engaging with a product in augmented reality, or to what extent will augmented reality, immersive experience for a product increase the conversion rates. So we're starting to sort of build that data now, and that's really something that is propelling us forward faster than we would have expected, because we're actually able to convey, you know, in very simple data points, the effectiveness of AR immersive experiences.

Von Ruzive: 14:45

I know that that's one of the things that you know, elena, you were looking at as well in terms of that analysis of what the customers are doing really. How are they interacting with the augmented reality or the 3D captures? And I know one of the things you mentioned was dwell time. So, yeah, that's really one of the things that I guess well can help convince these brands to actually use these technologies. But in your well, maybe dual time, or is there anything that you'd like to talk about in terms of the challenges that you may have faced?

Elina Menina: 15:17

Yeah, I would name two things. The first one is that there's so many exciting technologies coming out these days and the brands are actually they're limited in budgets and trying things during their financial year, I would say, even though the solutions that they're being offered are completely different, so they're not competing against each other. So, as we see here, we see here different solutions and they work different ways. They work different ways and they're all aimed to increase, you know, sales and customer experience and make the customer journey more exciting and more pleasant, and everything. But companies, they're limited in their resources and budgets in trying new things, as I would say. So we're kind of stuck in waiting while they have the opportunity to, even though they want to right. So, even though they think that we have a fantastic solution, sometimes it's just they're limited in resources.

Elina Menina: 16:19

And I would say that's one challenge that we're facing. And the other one is that it takes time to develop a really great technology, because we've created our solution. It took us seven years of doing R&D and only in seven years we've done a lot of research and we were trying to develop the technology that's going to solve all of the issues that I mentioned earlier. Scalability, as guys also mentioned easy to use. You know not to overload the website and other things that everyone's concerned about, so it takes a lot of time to bring the ideas in and developing the technology into, you know, a working tool tool just a little now, break from the serious talk.

Von Ruzive: 17:20

Let's have a little bit of fun with a bit of an activity, um and you guys can join in as well uh, um, or those, as we will be playing this or that. So what that really is is I will be putting pictures of two scenarios on the screen and, well, you guys, as well as the panelists, will be able to choose very quickly, quick fire, what you guys would prefer. If you had to really choose, I'll ask Hillary first Metaverse versus Web2. What would you, if you only had to pick one to put your technology into it or incorporate it somehow? Which one would you pick?

Hilary Littleton: 18:02

I guess I would say that customers are still being drawn to shop in Web2. So that's what my choice would be to kind of elevate that, and that's what we do. I do feel like metaverse is very experiential, but I feel like where my company can help the most is elevating, like the traditional shopping experience. Charles.

Charles Wilders: 18:25

Oh, it's a big. It's a big question. Yeah, I mean I'm going to go with metaverse, but I'm going to hesitate because I really hate the term metaverse. I think it's completely overused. It's very much an umbrella term for any innovative type of technology. Last night that were actually saying the metaverse is dead for a lot of luxury fashion brands because there was a lot of hype last year about it. But at the same time, you see swings and roundabouts with what people actually take interest in. At the moment, the buzz is AI, but now, for example, we're seeing crypto come back, but everyone thought that was dead a few years ago. So I'm going to go with metaverse, but with my brief explanation. That also.

Elina Menina: 19:10

Elena, I would actually agree with Hilary. Web 2 sounds more closer to something that we're experiencing now, and metaverse is something that is going to develop in a couple of years, in a couple of upcoming years. So I would say it's still in development. It's something very exciting and something that we're all waiting for, especially with the new Apple goggles. But I would say web too, because it's more closer to what we can actually experience these days.

Von Ruzive: 19:42

All right, virtual versus a physical store. So this is just talking about embedding your technologies. Obviously, you guys already have the way that you're doing it now, but if you had to maybe think about the future and how you could potentially progress from whatever you're doing now, what would you pick?

Charles Wilders: 20:00

These are such difficult questions to answer. I think I would have to go virtual, but at the same time, again, it's a balance because, realistically, the majority of customers, they want to feel a product, they want tangible interaction with a brand and that happens most efficiently and effectively in real life. However, virtual stores and the possibility to display products and immersive experience really does have a huge amount of value, I think, particularly for online channels. But I don't know, I'm going to go with virtual, but yeah, a bit of both.

Von Ruzive: 20:40

And Elena. Can I choose both? No, we cannot choose both.

Elina Menina: 20:45

Okay, explain why you choose both Because I think one cannot exist without the other, because they do have different purposes. And virtual world is there to help us to make our life easier, but at the same time we're still willing to go into physical stores, on different reasons. We might be there somewhere near having lunch, we're still. You know, we still love to go out and you know we drop by physical stores because we still like to experience the touchy and feely things and the stores they bring like they have this amazing smells and all this amazing you know, the service and everything. It's just different. I would not say that one can exist without the other. I mean, the fashion stores are very up their game, you know, even in the offline stores, and it's just nice to get this kind of service. And virtual is there to help you. If you don't have time, you still can make a purchase and it's gonna you know it's gonna make your life easier, hilary.

Hilary Littleton: 21:45

Yeah, it's so hard because I think that you know, fitmatch is trying to come at it from both angles as well. I mean, we're an omni-channel solution, so what you guys saw today is definitely our in-person way to experience it. But I think where we're you know putting our foot in the direction of online and virtual, for example, is creating a FitMatch widget. We all know what widgets are. We see widgets to you know buy now, pay later to, like you know, have a little button on a product detail page is really quite normal these days, and so what I think I would answer virtual, just because this is kind of our new frontier for FitMatch is creating a widget experience for online shoppers so after they scan, their recommended size will just auto populate on each item to alleviate any guesswork. As you know, various styles of the same brand can obviously fit differently. So I'm going to say virtual for this one.

Von Ruzive: 22:46

So magic mirrors versus phone led user journey. So this is if you have a physical store and you are looking at the interactivity or the way that the user interacts with the store through these technologies. So I will actually maybe let Hillary answer this one.

Hilary Littleton: 23:03

This is so interesting. I kind of like the phone led one because I'm finding that every user really likes having accessibility. So if they could experience something that is in the palm of their hand kind of back to what I was just saying about, like the widget experience they're much more likely to do it if it's brought to them where they feel comfortable. So I would say phone led user journey.

Von Ruzive: 23:28

Physical versus mobile ganning um. So this would have been great as hell for hillary. Just because this is actually what you're working on, um.

Charles Wilders: 23:37

But just to make it a little bit more fun, I'm going to make uh charles answer this one I would have to go mobile and uh phone based, as uh we, our flagship app, hosts a lot of our experiences and I think it's a very powerful thing that anyone can access a technology wherever they may be, for example, in their living room. They don't have to be in the physical store to actually be able to scan their size, for example. However, I think obviously in-store and physical does have a lot of significance as well, particularly the retail experience, for example, with uh in the previous one. If I can mention the ar mirrors, I think that's really significant for like window displays and stuff, but I think it's far more powerful if something is mobile.

Charles Wilders: 24:24

We actually had this conversation with the luxottica group at mido eyewear, the mido eyewear trade show in milan here, and they have the ar try on for the glasses, but just via a stand that they have in their stores or which they enable their brands to have in their stores, and I think it's an interesting question because we were saying how, actually, what if the customer can't actually go to the store? What if maybe they might be somewhere else? What if they're shopping online? So actually, yeah, I'm going mobile.

Von Ruzive: 24:59

Farfetch versus Net-A-Porter. This one's just for fun, suggested by Peter, and this is really again about, you know, kind of maybe what they're already presenting or what they value as well, and anything like that. So this one is for Elena. Well, it depends.

Elina Menina: 25:16

It depends. It depends. I would probably use Net-a-Porter and I think it was one of the pioneers of this luxury online shopping experiences and. But I feel like when I go into the Net-a-Porter, I feel like I'm in a luxury store, but online obviously. So probably Net-a-Porter, netaporte.

Von Ruzive: 25:36

I feel like I'm in a luxury store, but online obviously, so probably netaporte we're just going to end off with uh, talking about the consumer, um, as obviously we are all working with um. You know technologies that have users using them. So, yes, there's a client of maybe the brand that you're working with who adopt this technology, but the consumer themselves who are shopping. We want to talk about the expectations with these experiences. I know we kind of touched upon that a little bit, but it would be great to go in a little bit more detail of these expectations. You know, responding to how you know the current in-store tech, or even the uh, the digital uh technologies are working to see how that works.

Von Ruzive: 26:27

So just kind of to know the context of this question as well, in the book we do talk about the different users of these technologies and one of them being, you know, gen Z, for example, who are most likely going to be a little bit more natural with the use of Snapchat or Instagram that already have AR and those kind of things already embedded in that. So naturally, they're just going to be exposed to it, whereas the older generations may not be so familiar with it as well. To it, whereas the older generations may not be so familiar with it as well. So in this case you can also talk about kind of target consumer as well, just to put a bit more context to your answer. But it's really you know what are their expectations with, you know, in-store or digital shopping at the moment and these tools basically. So, if I can, have.

Hilary Littleton: 27:18

I think everyone can agree navigating fitting rooms can be very discouraging for customers who are trying to find the right size if they're not familiar with the brand or maybe they're just going through some body changes and they just may feel uncomfortable. Asking, you know, sales associates for help and especially with, like lingerie, getting measured is just typically kind of a mental block that a lot of consumers face. So we actually built a way for consumers to not have to drag a bunch of sizes into the dressing room. They can, you know, complete a one second scan and know their size. They also, you know, get to see all of the sizes that fit them across a product array. So I think these personalized recommendations really help them feel more confident in their clothes.

Hilary Littleton: 28:11

We've gotten a ton of customer feedback on this. People are, you know, having their like whole confidence lifted from like a qualitative perspective, but then from a quantitative perspective, the brands are really gaining a ton from this loyalty that's being built. So where we've deployed our in-store solution, we're seeing a 6x increase in conversion rate, a 20% to 30% increase in average order value. So if you know your size in one product, you're way more likely to keep purchasing those recommendations. So your cart increases and then my favorite statistic is an 80% drop in returns. So they're way less likely to return because they know their size. And then I'm sure we could all relate to this buying multiple sizes in hoping that one of them does fit, or, like it's called, bracket shopping. So less than 1% of consumers who are doing our in-store solution are actually bracket shopping. So really, like I said in the video, alleviating a ton of guesswork, a ton of waste that's going into it, but also making customers feel really excited and better about themselves after the experience.

Von Ruzive: 29:26

Yeah, and I think we're all kind of guilty of that at some points, where we just guess, you know, with the bracket shopping we're just like, okay, maybe I'll just buy you know two sizes and then try it on and see if that's going to work, or, in this case, just trying on the two sizes as opposed to just getting that size recommendation instantly as well. So, yeah, if I can go with NNR.

Elina Menina: 29:50

Yeah, I think I touched on that a bit earlier, but I would say that when a client feels that actually those technologies are actually helping them, they're more willing to use them. And, by well thought through technologies that are integrated to whether it's online or an offline store, the customer feels like the brand is taking care of him, he's taking care of his time, he's taking care of his effort and he's you know the valuable money that they're spending with them. And it's always nice when you feel that satisfaction and honesty and authenticity, you're more willing to go back, because we are mostly we were not happy when we go into the store and we feel like they're wasting our time, whether it's online or offline. So both um on. When we're talking about online, it's the website that's not opening up or the product page is not um launching properly, and that's why the brands they're spending so much time and money into enhancing their online experiences. Because that's their face. I would say Both, whether at home, no matter where you go. So that's how I would put it.

Von Ruzive: 31:08

Yeah, thank you so much, guys, for your responses. I know we haven't really heard from Peter this whole time as we're really tight for time, but do you have anything at all to add to that, peter?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 31:19

I love how each of your solutions is tackling retail from a different perspective and ultimately it's about how do we create a better customer experience, especially in that product discovery phase, which I think is really interesting. I just want to leave the listeners with a couple of stats food for thought. So over half of the world's population now owns a smartphone. So, going back to your this or that question earlier on, you know nearly five million people and I think that is only going to increase and it's going to be to see how more advanced solutions like yours are going to be adopted. Um, globally, in terms of online e-com stores, 38% of users actually drop off if they don't find the layout or the content attractive. So it's quite a high number. And then, in terms of clothing e-com stores, you have 45 seconds to get the attention of the user on average, which is a super short amount of time. So it's interesting to see how your solutions are being integrated to, of course, increase those stats for the retailer. So just some thoughts there for the listeners.

Von Ruzive: 32:27

Well, thank you so much, everyone. That pretty much ends our webinar for today. So it has been exciting, obviously, to see these in more detail and, for those who don't have the book yet, hopefully this encourages you to actually get your copy. You can get a 20% discount, which is actually in the chat as well. You will have to use the code and it's specific to the Springer website for that discount. But other than that, thank you all for joining us. Thank you so much, guys.