Virtual Wardrobes, Closets & Configurators

B2B UK INTELLIGENT MARKET RESEARCH

Virtual Wardrobes, Closets & Configurators

B2B White Paper

A business briefing for online fashion executives,

eCommerce sales, marketing and merchandising.

Dr M.E Porter

June 2010

VIRTUAL WARDROBES, CLOSETS & CONFIGURATORS

© M.E.Porter 2010 INTELLIGENT MARKET RESEARCH

Page | 2

Contents

Executive Summary 3 Business Case 4

We Will Make One 4

Photography 5

Units Per Transaction 6

Model, Mannequin or Me? 7

Turnaround 8

Leveraging Digital Assets Across Social Media 9

Customer Experience & ROI 10 A History: tried, tested and trusted 11

Current Contenders 12

Comparison Chart 12

The fashion industry is still some way from realising the full potential of

outfit configuration. There is an undeniable logic in allowing customers to

research, engage and purchase, wherever they are online.



Page | 3

Executive Summary

The online fashion sector is only just beginning to wake up to the benefits of

empowering customers to personalise their own shopping experiences, enabling

them to create outfits by clicking on product images to dress a model or mannequin

image.

Very little historical data exists, such is the recent uptake of this technology but early

figures show Average Basket Value uplift of around 30% plus harder to measure

increases in customer satisfaction – making virtual wardrobes sure-fire future

phenomena for online visual merchandising and eCommerce.

This study takes a quick look at this innovative technology and compares the current

contenders for ‘king configurator’ between four UK providers (No Need 4 Mirrors, Mix

Match Me, Metail and Schway), one Swedish competitor (Looklet), one US

contender (Couturious) and an Estonian entrant (Fits.Me). Polyvore has not been

included in this comparison as it is more a mood board than a configurator, even

though its early popularity is undeniable.

All products have been judged using the following criteria. We will see that the

configurator offering clearest advantages and opportunities to online fashion retailers

in the Schway application for several reasons (see p.12):

Most intuitive and immersive GUI

Clearest navigation

Most advanced functionality

Fastest to load

Easiest to integrate

No extra photography required

Can display various models and/or mannequins

Fastest turnaround

Social media add-ons

Best price

Best ROI

There are great opportunities for fashion retailers to join the likes of Boden, French

Connection, H&M and Next and embrace this new technology which should only

need integration (to ensure accurate stock levels, prices and product information) to

then plug-in and measurably increase:

Customer satisfaction

Conversion rates to sales

Both units per transaction and average basket values

Brand engagement across social media

http://www.schway.net/



Page | 4

Business case

Or frequently asked questions from eCommerce Directors

We will make one. Tell Dave the developer to do it.

I sincerely advise you not to make this mistake and send poor Dave the developer

into a blind panic. The apparent simplicity of product layering belies the complexity of

masking, coding, database design and usability involved. To set such a task to your

development team would, in all likelihood, end in tears of frustration and not enhance

your visionary reputation.

Indeed, this is the main reason why such a logical solution to online fashion

personalisation and upselling has not come to the market place sooner. In fashion,

the ‘look’ is all and believe me, it is far easier to ruin brand reputation with a clunky

and slow app that does not display properly than to enhance it with a well-developed

and intuitive solution.

The idea is simplicity itself but the execution and enough attention to detail to

convince fashion shoppers to purchase within such an application is where the real

challenge lies.

The majority of providers listed here have only recently been active in the market

and started to attract customers within the last eighteen months. Certainly uptake

has not been rapid in that time but the business logic is undeniable and we are

witnessing the first wave of a new way of shopping for fashion online.

Among many of the current providers there are still bugs and glitsches: where

footwear cannot be displayed on the model, where the shoulders of a shirt can be

seen poking out from under an overcoat and where endless layers can be worn

without looking like an overweight Inuit.

Also, the business models vary between providers from licence fees, per item fees,

affiliate percentages and set up fees. A winning and convincing business model is

yet to emerge as all providers still try to break into a fashion industry, with super-slow

decision-making due to small, inexperienced eCommerce teams being

understandably over-cautious in the dark depths of a recession. It’s not easy; even

though the fashion sector remains the strongest performing retail sector online and

industry insiders are predicting that by 2016 the UK online fashion business will

account for 13% of the fashion market and be worth some £6 billion.

IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. April 2009.

Tip: at the end of each section I would like to offer the eCommerce exec handy tips

to think about when selecting configuration technology



Page | 5

Photography. We want to re-shoot your entire catalogue.

This is most serious argument and issue against the uptake of most outfit

configurators.

All but two of the providers listed will ask you to send your products to their studio (or

they will visit you) and shoot (or re-shoot) your entire collection again.

This is clearly so that each product is seen to fit the model or mannequin. However,

in such a fast-paced industry I believe that any company that wants to offer

configuration to the likes of M&S, ASOS or Tesco for example would be laughed out

of the room. They cannot ask to re-photograph that which has already been

photographed. Such a painful and slow process is reserved for magazines – where

one sample does the rounds from magazine editor to editor, from stylist to stylist and

with luck will end up back at retail HQ, battered and bruised from the manhandling.

It is not a scalable process and in all probability the cost of all that extra photography

is going to come right back at you, the eCommerce Director. Also the danger of

success for the provider may mean that at such a business critical time as the

approach to Christmas; for example, there are too many risky links in the chain from

the merchandiser sending stock, to the van driver, to the photographer and on and

on.

Tip: if the outfit configurator provider relies on any extra photography being taken for

their application, then they are not seeing the bigger picture. Do not waste your time,

energy and resources on such a provider but advise them to redevelop or hire an

army of artworkers to Photoshop your current photography (but don’t pass the costs

back, please)!



Page | 6

Units per Transaction. Let Customers Buy Outfits

Clearly, as the online shopper interacts with product images, they are forming an

emotional attachment, investing time and creative energy to complete a look or

combination. This is similar to successfully completing a game level or a crossword.

Shoppers are more inclined to purchase product that they have spent enjoyable time

arranging, combining and creating.

It is surprising to remember that all online fashion retailers display their products in

row after row, one item at a time. It is also surprising to remember that ecommerce

platforms have been set up so that singular product after singular product are placed

into the shopping basket. Outfits are made up of five, six or even seven products –

why can’t I place the lot into my basket in one fell swoop?

There is a clear division here from the in-store experience, taking several products

into the dressing room, putting a look together, discarding some and buying the rest.

In these times of online personalisation, where we can build a profile page, or blog

and reconfigure pages to suit our style, it is astonishing that, when shopping, I

cannot see whether this top goes with these trousers!

Configuration is the next logical step for retailers and merchandisers to offer to their

customers – a new way to shop, a visual experience for consumers, cross-selling,

upselling and out-selling.

Make sure the configurator provider has API documentation for you to hand to your

eCommerce platform provider. It makes everyone’s work easier and more

straightforward.

Tip: for easiest and pain free integration with your eCommerce provider, ensure that

the configuration provider has tried and tested API documentation. Integration itself

is neither expensive nor time consuming. Essentially, this is an exchange of product

attributes (layers) and product feeds (price, stock and information) necessary to

bring the application to life on your site.



Page | 7

Model, mannequin or me? Which sells more?

Don’t be fooled into peeling the onion of personalisation. Fashion is about aspiration

to the look or the lifestyle.

Retailers want to sell more clothes. Shoppers want to look fabulous. They do not

want to see their face or flab before they purchase. The next wave of configurators

will promise such personalisation but again, be warned. Let social networks and

other media deal with how customers’ details are displayed.

All but one of the current applications which show models are, in reality,

mannequins, Photoshopped with different skin tones and heads stuck on. You can

clearly see this from the mannequin position – which does not change no matter

what you dress them in. This raises a problem of styling and display, as all product

photography and display on the model becomes uniform – see the same application

on Boden and Next. Is product alone sufficient to differentiate brands?

The debate as to which sells more in merchandising: models (brunette or blonde) or

mannequins (headless or posed) will go on and on. Current thinking points to

brunette models being on top. Some say that blonde models are unpopular with

female shoppers who are more likely to judge themselves unfavourably against a

blonde model and tend not to purchase.

None of the current providers has yet proven that they can deliver an application

which displays fashion on different shaped, sized and coloured mannequins or

models. Schway comes closest with a variety of applications showing real models

and different mannequins.

It would be a powerful offering from retailers to enable their logged-in customer to

choose their own size, shape and colouration and then to see only products which fit

and suit a perfectly presented mannequin or suitable model. That would be ideal

personalisation from the retail and consumer perspectives. It would also allow in-

house stylists to assist shoppers with targeted advice, rather than the ‘one size fits

all’ tips and upsells that are suggested these days.

This is similar to filtering the results of a search:

X shape x Y size x Z colouration = personalised style suggestions (+ great customer

service + more sales)

Tip: ask your potential provider whether they can provide you with an application

that can change through the seasons to show a model (perhaps a celeb model for a

capsule collection) or a mannequin and how configurable they are.

http://www.schway.net/



Page | 8

Turnaround

Today’s fast fashion boasts hundreds of products per week, flying in and out and

whereas most retailers do not display anywhere near as many products as ASOS or

Tesco for example, it’s clear that outfit configurators need to keep apace with sales

instore and online.

The Chief Executive of one provider boasted 3 weeks to process 300 products –

which would mean that many products would have sold out even before they

appeared in the application! This particular provider, being reliant on its own

photography, does not even shoot full inventory, so heaven help them if they were to

land one or two majors.

Speed is of the essence. What goes live online must also appear in the app at the

same moment to avoid confusion and customer disappointment.

This also calls into question how much of your catalogue to include in a configurator.

Why not all of it? Why are some retailers already using this technology only including

a quarter of their product line – another argument against those providers who need

to take extra photography to make things fit?

Tip: If your provider cannot handle the volume and pace that your web team are

working at, go elsewhere. Outfit builders should provide enhancements to your site,

not piecemeal, incomplete and unsatisfactory shopping experiences. Ask them how

long it would take to process 100 products (including various colourways) to get a

good idea of how fast or slow they are compared to your current operations.



Page | 9

Leveraging Digital Assets across Social Media

Ask yourself what happens with that digital photograph of your product. Track its

journey from photographers lens to your site and beyond.

How often can it be seen, where and by whom? Is it really working for you?

Outfit configurators mean that shoppers are actually engaged with product, using

them, combining them, sending to friends and buying them. What’s more the longer

they are engaged, the more likely they are to purchase, according to Eyeblaster,

Microsoft Advertising and comScore.

“Higher Dwell rates were found to increase conversion rates. According to the report, increasing the

amount of time consumers spend on-site by as little as 5% to 15% can increase conversion rates by

as much as 45%. Eyeblaster defines 'dwell' as the entire course of action a consumer takes on-site

prior to making a purchase. So, from the time a consumer clicks on an ad, surfs to a website and

engages with content to the time they finalise a purchase. Researchers found:

• High Dwell rates increased traffic by 69% • Ad placements in areas where consumers 'dwell' longer causes them to stay online longer • News content, instant messaging, map sites and children's sites all have high dwell rates

‘It's encouraging to see the same metric applicable to different marketing objectives,’ said Gal Trifon,

Eyeblaster CEO and co-founder. ‘The connection between engagement and conversions emphasises

the value of digital display as a response medium, while the joint research with Microsoft Advertising

shows clear branding correlation.’

What all of this means is that consumers need to engage with a website, whether a content hub or a

product information area, before they will convert to a purchase. Nothing new there. What is new is

the disparity between high-dwell and conversions and low-dwell and lower conversion rates.

BizReport 10th May 2010 by Kristina Knight

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/05/why_marketing_strategy_should_measure_more_than_clicks.html

Now imagine the ROI on the same product image as it makes itself available to all

your fans on Facebook, on your mobile app, as sticky content on an embeddable

app in online fashion magazines and even as content on in-store touchscreen

kiosks. All of a sudden the image is working for you and worth a lot more than the

£10 you paid for it.

Tip: Any configurator you choose for your operations must be able to use your

current product images. Sure, there may be a tweak in collaboration with your

photographer but nothing more.

http://www.bizreport.com/2010/05/why_marketing_strategy_should_measure_more_than_clicks.html



Page | 10

The Customer Experience & ROI

Fact. Offline shoppers walk into a store, perhaps ask questions: looking, touching

and trying products at their leisure. They can do so with any product. The majority of

customers, with intent to purchase, will take more than one product into the dressing

room prior to purchase.

So, why do retailers not extend this process online? Online shoppers must be given

the same opportunities, indeed many of them are shopping online as they do not

have the time to visit the store!

Just as the zoom function is expected to be present these days on any fashion site, it

will be an essential requirement that retailers offer such personalisation to their

customers within the next two and half years.

The accumulated data is the equivalent of following each and every in-store visitor

and recording what they look at, touch, try on, combine, covet and would like to buy.

Again, there is very little historical data to work with but such pre-purchase data can

provide visual merchandisers and marketers with powerful information on customer

preferences and behaviour.

As those who shop online can still be viewed as early adopters, collections ‘pre-

released’ online could provide invaluable metrics to inform offline marketing and

merchandising – who is looking at what and why?

Also

The mixing and matching, the combining and contrasting of fashion online is a purely

visual feast which crosses continents and communicates with all of us who care

about what we wear. With retailers anxious to move into new markets and delivering

abroad, it cannot be too difficult to offer different language version applications.

Indeed, it is only the product description, currency and size which need to be

translated!

Tip 1: Ask your dress-up app developers whether they provide customer behaviour

data records as standard.

Tip 2: make sure the configurator database is UTF-8 compliant to support all regional UTF-8 character sets (including languages and currencies).



Page | 11

A History: tried, tested & trusted

The concept for dressing a figure dates to when paper figures were first recorded in ritual ceremonies in Asian cultures in 900AD.

The first manufactured paper doll was Little Fanny,

produced by S&J Fuller, London, in 1810. The first

American manufactured paper doll was The History

and Adventures of Little Henry, published by J.

Belcher of Boston in 1812. In the 1820s, boxed

paper doll sets were popularly produced in Europe

and exported to America, principally for children.

The 1930s thorough to the 1950s can perhaps

claim the title "Golden Age of Paper Dolls," as their

popularity during those years has never been

equalled. Even during the US depression, paper toys could be afforded by all.

Despite the product shortages of World War II, paper dolls were still manufactured,

though on lesser-quality papers. Parents of the 1950s revered the image of little girls

lovingly playing with paper dolls, just as their mothers and grandmothers had before

them.

The precise modern-day equivalent of Little Fanny is Stardoll. Its variations on paper

dolls and dress-up games help attract 7.8 million unique visitors a month to a Web

site that is published in 15 languages and combines elements of a social network

and a virtual world. The majority of visitors are girls. The average age is 13.8 years,

spending spend between two and two and a half hours a month there. Stardoll has

7,144,735 members and is adding 20,000 new members a day.

Serious business as the site took $4 million in Series A funding from Index Ventures

in February 2006, and $6 million in a B Series round lead by Sequoia Capital in June

the same year.

In case you thought that this was irrelevant to the current online fashion market, you

should realise that all those young girls (and boys) who visit such sites and very

many others (just Google ‘dress up games’) are all growing up and in no time at all

will be demanding the same interactivity when they shop for real fashion online.

Polyvore does not feature here as it is, at best a mood board, with no central figure

and offers no configuration. However, its success illustrates how users want to

interact and engage with fashion brands.

http://www.indexventures.com/cgi-local/ivw_home.cgi

http://www.sequoiacap.com/



Page | 12

Current Contenders

I would like to congratulate the following companies and applications, before

criticising them. They have seen the potential of a huge, growing, worldwide market

and they have coded and designed, developed and produced in order to get a slice

of it.

They are pitching to an extremely slow-moving online fashion machine, hampered by

traditional thinking and small, inexperienced eCommerce teams. They are pioneers,

perhaps only the first wave but from their ranks leaders will emerge and others with

unwieldy business models or lack of attention to detail will fade.

Scoring: Each company was scored out of a total possible 10 points per category.

The best overall product is that with the highest score. One of the applications had

not launched at time of going to Press therefore not all details were available.

Top 7

Ran

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Co

mp

an

ies

GU

I

Navig

ati

on

Fu

nc

tio

na

lity

Lo

ad

sp

eed

Inte

gra

tio

n

No

ph

oto

gra

ph

y

Mo

de

l o

r m

an

ne

qu

in

Tu

rna

rou

nd

So

cia

l M

ed

ia

Pri

ce

RO

I Total

1

Schway

8 7 9 8 8 10 10 8 8 8 8 92

2

Looklet

9 8 7 8 4 0 5 5 8 5 6 65

3

MixMatchMe

7 5 5 8 4 0 5 2 4 6 7 53

4

NN4M

2 4 5 2 7 10 n/a 6 8 5 8 57

5

Couturious

7 6 3 8 2 0 5 3 6 3 4 47

6

Fits.Me

5 2 7 4 6 0 0 4 3 5 6 42

7

Metail

n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 0 0 6 0 n/a n/a 6



Page | 13

Schway

http://www.schway-fashion.com

Rank #1

London UK

48 Charlotte Street, London W1T 2NS

The only configurator which offers complete

flexibility – no extra photography required and

the display of various shaped and sized

models or mannequins. Fastest to process

and most scalable operations. Overall, best

value and most efficient processes.

Contact [email protected]

Strengths Weaknesses

Web design and app presentation of highest quality

Extensive functionality for users Does not require extra photography Displays models or mannequins of any

size and shape Price ticker In-built messaging Facebook, iPhone and touchscreen apps

Would like to see this and all such apps display various skin tones

Looklet

http://looklet.com

Rank #2

Stockholm, Sweden

Looklet AB, Blekingegatan 14, 118 56 Stockholm


First customer is H&M Web design and app presentation is very

high quality Extensive functionality for users

All photography must be taken in Sweden 1 mannequin style Need to take specific mannequin shots so will

face problem of persuading retailers to pay for extra photography

http://www.schway-fashion.com/

mailto:[email protected]

http://looklet.com/



Page | 14

MixMatchMe

http://www.mixmatchme.com

Rank #3

UK

2 Sheraton Street, London, W1F 8BH


Customers - Boden and French Connection

Need to take specific mannequin shots so will face problem of persuading retailers to pay for extra photography

Limited functionality Fixed model/mannequin choice 3 weeks to process 300 products

No Need 4 Mirrors

http://www.nn4m.co.uk

Rank #4

UK

149 The Street, Rushmere St. Andrew Ipswich, IP5 1DG


Customers – Oasis, Matalan, Coast, Karen Millen

No additional photography costs to retailers

Already on Facebook, Bebo, iPhone app

Limited functionality for users Unsatisfactory user experience No display of mannequin or model

http://www.mixmatchme.com/

http://www.nn4m.co.uk/



Page | 15

Couturious

http://www.couturious.com

Rank #5

US based

149 Like.com, 777 Mariner's Island Blvd, Suite 510, San Mateo, CA 94404.

Couturious arrived suddenly in February this year in extremely suspicious circumstances.

Like.com, the new owner, tried to acquire the Swedish, Looklet in 2009 and was rejected.

This, according to Adam Berg (Looklet CEO) ‘led them to this desperate copycat action’.

Apart from the glaring lack of original ideas, Couturious doesn’t show much of the quality or

attention to detail, essentially the love for fashion we’ve put into Looklet. Considering the

feedback we’ve received from users and the industry, all others recognize this as well. To

quote a user; ‘If Looklet had an ugly sister Couturious would be it.’

Certainly in their early days, Like.com announced that they had ‘learned to hack’ the JPEG.

Perhaps this is how they copied Looklet so entirely?


Very similar in style to Looklet

Very similar in style to Looklet All photography must be taken in NY 1 mannequin style Need to take specific mannequin shots so

will face problem of persuading retailers to pay for extra photography

Fits Me

http://fits.me/

Rank #6

Estonia

Veerenni, 24C, 10135 Tallinn, Estonia


Surprisingly has won EU funds to develop Retailers to change current processes Must take 20+ photos per product Unimpressive, unconvincing visual result Only showing male torso No mixing and matching

http://www.couturious.com/

http://fits.me/



Page | 16

Metail

http://www.metail.co.uk/

Rank #7

UK based

6 Keeling House, Claredale Street, London E2 6PG


New entrant Already has secured some funding

No working demo 6 shots required per item (demo video) Need to take specific mannequin shots so

will face problem of persuading retailers to pay for extra photography

Dr. Matthew E. Porter

This was a private study carried out to inform a colleague within online fashion

and was only published after encouragement from her.

Porter held the position of Senior Application Developer for World Wide Tech and

previously held senior engineering positions at Telco and IBM Global Marketing

Services. Most recently served as Director of Professional Services for Demand

Management and built a team of senior developers and consultants to implement

the next-generation of enterprise supply chain management.

Contact: [email protected]

Screenshot unavailable

http://www.metail.co.uk/

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