In the future, customers’ 3D avatars will improve the online shopping experience at H&M and possibly reduce the number of returns.
The Swedish clothing retailer H&M wants to develop a digital changing room together with Nexr Technologies, a company that offers virtual reality solutions for remote presentations and seminars. This should allow online customers of H&M to try on items of clothing virtually on their own avatar in advance. H&M hopes that this will reduce the return rate of clothes bought online – for example because they don’t fit properly or you don’t like them.
As Nexr announced , the company is working with H&M beyond, the clothing retailer’s innovation center. The “virtual fitting solution” is not yet ready for widespread use. A first prototype should be available in summer 2021. Later, customers will be able to have their bodies scanned as a 3D image in selected H&M stores with a 3D photogrammetry scanner from Nexr in order to create a personal 3D avatar.
With the help of an app, customers can then try on clothes virtually. Oliver Lange, Head of H&M beyond, sees the digital changing room as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, customers can virtually determine whether clothing suits them and thus help them with the purchase decision. This in turn could have positive effects on the return behavior and the number of returns due to garments that do not fit or are not liked can be reduced. It is said that H&M will work with customers to find out whether that is the case. So far, around 50 percent of all orders in the clothing industry have been returned.
Take away 3D avatar
Nexr offers a corresponding scan solution for capturing a 3D model of the body, which is now to be further developed with H&M beyond and adapted to specific needs. This also includes generating a photo-realistic avatar that the customer can transfer to their smartphone and take with them. In order to ensure that the clothes will fit later, the clothes are also recorded as 3D models.
The use of 3D avatars for online shopping is not entirely new. The Japanese online store Zozo already sends out tailored clothing that is also based on a 3D model of the customer. The customer can create a 3D model of himself in advance using a suit with measuring points provided, the Zozo suit, and his own smartphone .
