Indian fashion brands are elegantly late to the tech party
Just like any other product-based industry, the fashion industry is also opening up to the adoption of virtual and augmented reality to create personalized customer experiences, which are then expected to drive higher sales. Customers interact with these brands throughout their shopping experience, as the latter provides them with the unique approach of interactive shopping.
This approach implements emerging technologies, such as AR/VR and others, to allow customers to choose their favorite products without having to be physically present in the store to try them on.
However, despite these concerted efforts between the brands, no equally significant improvements have been seen for their Indian counterparts over the past decade. It seems that perhaps now, more than ever, we need to catch up with these emerging trends and the technologies that contribute to their growing popularity. But where do we start?
AR/VR in vogue
italian luxury brand gucci created an AR-backed iOS app that allowed customers to remotely and virtually try on their ‘Ace sneaker collection’ in 2019. Gucci also collaborated with multimedia messaging app ‘Snapchat’ to offer a virtual try-on experience to through the app. It was the first luxury fashion brand to partner with a social media platform to drive sales with an AR tool. Gucci’s entry into virtual reality proved very effective in boosting sales. According to Robert Triefus, Gucci’s executive vice president of brand and customer engagement, the brand is working to achieve an immersive shopping experience by merging physical and digital realities. French sportswear brand lacoste it also used augmented reality technology for a similar purpose: allowing customers in offline stores to digitally ‘try on’ its LCST streetwear collection and interact with additional content curated by the company.
Image source: VentureBeat
In 2019, ASOS, the British online fashion and cosmetics retailer, has launched an experimental AR feature called ‘Virtual Catwalk’ to help users visualize clothing on human models before making a purchase. He also created a feature called ‘See My Fit’ in 2020 in the midst of lockdown that gave customers the option to see how clothes fit on 16 different models, ranging from size 4 to 18, in an appearance environment. realistic. However, ASOS He received many criticisms for not being inclusive enough since there was no model above size 18.
Image Source: Bustle
Another interesting development in the global fashion sector is AR from Timberland. Magic mirror that allows customers to virtually ‘dress up’ in select ensembles. Additionally, Timberland collaborated with Lemon & Orange to be one of the first brands to bring virtual fitting rooms to Mokotów Gallery, a shopping mall in Poland.
Beyond the hubbub of fashion
But this is not just limited to fashion brands. Other industries are just as enthusiastic about adopting interactive shopping. For example, in the cosmetics industry, companies have been incorporating AI and AR to provide better personalized experiences for their consumers.
One of the most notable developments in this sector is French makeup D2C L’Oreal acquiring the Canadian augmented reality specialist. ModiFace in 2018. This acquisition allowed customers to select eye shadows, concealers, and lipsticks, among other products, and try them on in a virtual mirror on live video.
Although prima facie it was considered revolutionary, it was soon discovered that it is not easy to understand whether the shades match well, even if one can see them on the skin. The lip color feature is also weird as the color usually turns out to be darker or lighter in real life. To make the misery worse, the fake lip filler feature makes matters worse for shoppers who are simply looking for the products that best suit them and not a virtually modified version of them. With L’Oreal buying maybellinethis trial item can be used in all applications that sell Maybelline products.
Last year, the popular Indian e-commerce company and cosmetic giant Wank said it would be bring L’Oreal ModiFace for at-home beauty enthusiasts. But, there have been no notable developments yet after the announcement.
playing catch up
Unlike the international market, the Indian fashion and cosmetics industries have been slow to adopt immersive technologies. With much pomp and show, online fashion retailer Myntra introduced an offline store for his private label, touring car, in Bangalore in 2017. CEO Ananth Narayanan claimed the store would serve as an “experience zone” and planned to open 50 such stores by 2020. The store had VR screens and huge touch screens. Items had Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to allow customers to check out and pay independently in a matter of 30 seconds. The offline store had as main objective to increase the visibility of the brand and also had a virtual reality zone, with four Samsung Gear VR Headset to view a 360-degree video showcasing “Roadster life.”
Myntra did not use virtual reality to enhance customer shopping experiences, but used it simply as a promotional tool. This ultimately led to the Flipkart-owned company succumbing to losses and to close the offline store in March 2019.
But not all brands use technology for promotional purposes only. Omnichannel eyewear brand lens card took advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak to introduce virtual reality headsets for its customers. They could check how the frames looked on their faces from the website and make purchases without physically going to the store. This included face scanning and analysis. Based on the shape and size of the face, he also recommended frames. The virtual reality headset also offered a 360-degree view of the goggles. However, even if one could try on a pair of glasses, the interface could be much smoother. Several users reported that the device simply shows a static glimpse of their bespectacled faces, but disappears once you take them to the main page.
john jacobs, a premium D2C glasses brand, also implements augmented reality. But unlike Lenskart, it captures videos of customers’ faces as they try on glasses. You can move your head left and right to see what it looks like.
Now or never
Although not many fashion and cosmetics brands in India have been quick to embrace emerging technologies, several of them recognize that AR has the potential to revolutionize and fundamentally rethink the customer experience, whether it be clothing, accessories, footwear, décor of home. , or other products completely.
Beyond the conversion potential, AR’s ability to decrease the significant burden of item returns may be more attractive to brands and online retailers as this technology promises to give their customers a technical method by which they can confirm correctly and confidently determine the size and shape of a product, be it a sofa or a sweater.