Like any other product-based industry, the fashion industry is also opening up to the adoption of virtual and augmented reality in order to create personalized customer experiences, which is then expected to drive increased sales. Customers are engaging with such brands throughout their shopping experience as the latter offers them unique access to interactive shopping.
This approach uses emerging technologies, such as AR/VR and others, to allow customers to select their favorite products without having to be physically present in the store to try them on.
However, despite such concerted efforts across brands, there hasn’t been an equally significant improvement 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 increased popularity. But where do we start?
Fashionable AR/VR
Italian luxury brand Gucci created an AR-enabled iOS app that allowed customers to remotely and virtually try on the ‘Ace sneaker collection’ in 2019. Gucci also partnered with multimedia messaging app ‘Snapchat’ to provide a virtual hands-on experience 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 to be very effective in increasing sales. According to Robert Triefus, Gucci’s executive vice president of brand and customer engagement, the brand is working toward an immersive shopping experience by merging physical and digital realities. French sports fashion brand Lacoste also used augmented reality technology for a similar purpose – allowing customers in offline stores to digitally ‘try on’ their LCST streetwear collection and interact with additional content curated by the company.
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in 2019, ASOS, the British online fashion and cosmetics retailer, launched an experimental AR feature called ‘Virtual Catwalk’ to help users visualize clothes on human models before making a purchase. It also created a feature called “See My Fit” in 2020 amid the lockdown that offered customers the chance to see how clothes fit on 16 different models—ranging from sizes 4 to 18—in a realistic-looking environment. However, ASOS received a lot of criticism for not being inclusive enough as there were no models above size 18.
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Another interesting development in the global fashion sector is Timberland’s AR magic mirror enabling customers to virtually ‘dress up’ in selected outfits. In addition, Timberland partnered with Lemon & Orange to be one of the first brands to bring virtual fitting rooms to Galerina Mokotów, a shopping mall in Poland.
Beyond fashion style
But this is not limited to fashion brands. Other industries are equally enthusiastic in adopting interactive shopping. For example, in the cosmetics industry, companies have incorporated 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, which acquired Canadian AR specialist ModiFace in 2018. This acquisition allowed customers to choose eyeshadows, concealer shades, and lipsticks—among other products—and rehearsed in a virtual mirror on live video.
Although it was considered to be prima facie revolutionary, it was soon discovered that it is not easy to know if the shades fit well even if you can see them on their skin. The lip color feature is also sharp as the color generally turns out to be darker or lighter in real life. To add to the misery, the feature of adding fake lips makes it worse for buyers who are simply looking for products that fit them best and not a modified virtual version of them. With the purchase of Maybelline by L’Oreal, you can use this trial element in all applications that sell Maybelline products.
Last year, the popular Indian e-commerce company and cosmetics giant Give up said it would bring L’Oreal’s ModiFace to beauty enthusiasts at home. But, there is still no visible development after the announcement.
Playing catch
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 launched an offline store for its private label, Roadster, in Bengaluru in 2017. CEO Ananth Narayanan claimed that the store would serve as an “experience zone” and planned to open 50 such stores by 2020. The store had VR displays and large touchscreens. Items had radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to allow customers to pay and check out independently in a matter of 30 seconds. The offline store mainly aimed to increase brand visibility and also had a VR area, with four Samsung Gear VR headsets to watch a 360-degree video showing “street life”.
Myntra did not use VR to enhance customers’ shopping experiences, but simply used it as a promotional tool. This ultimately led the Flipkart-owned company to succumb to losses and shut down the offline store in March 2019.
But not every brand used the technology for promotional purposes only. Omnichannel eyewear brand Lenskart took advantage of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to introduce virtual reality devices to 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 facial scanning and analysis. Based on the shape and size of the face, he also recommended the frame. The virtual reality device also offered a 360-degree view of the glasses. However, even if one can try the glasses, the interface can be much smoother. Some users reported that the device only shows a static image of their faces with the glasses, but disappears once it takes you to the home page.
John Jacobs, a premium D2C eyewear brand, also implements augmented reality. But unlike Lenskart, it captures videos of customers’ faces as they try on the glasses. You can move your head left and right to see how it looks.
Now or never
Although not many brands across fashion and cosmetics in India have been quick to adopt emerging technologies, some of them recognize that AR has the potential to revolutionize and fundamentally rethink the customer experience – be it apparel, accessories , shoes, home decor, or other products entirely.
Beyond the potential for conversion, AR’s capacity to significantly reduce the 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 accurately and reliably confirm the size and shape of a product, whether it’s a sofa or a sweater.
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