{"id":5400,"date":"2020-01-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehoglab.com\/why-retailers-are-taking-fashion-advice-from-ai\/"},"modified":"2023-11-30T14:55:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T13:55:58","slug":"why-retailers-are-taking-fashion-advice-from-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehoglab.com\/why-retailers-are-taking-fashion-advice-from-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Why retailers are taking fashion advice from AI."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The fashion industry is big business\u201a one of the biggest out there in fact. Worth $2.4trn globally<\/a> at last count\u201a the fashion industry would be bigger than all but six of the world\u2019s largest economies in terms of GDP\u201a beating out the likes of France\u201a Brazil and Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With such economic might it\u2019s unsurprising that\u201a much like its fellow superpower economies China and the USA\u201a retailers in the industry have been investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an era of fast fashion\u201a knowing what the customer wants and getting it to them as quickly as possible is vital to staying competitive\u201a and AI can help retailers do this more efficiently than ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Upstarts like ASOS and subscription delivery services like Thread and Stitch Fix have been shaking up the status quo thanks to their embracing of this new technological frontier and have got the incumbents rattled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether its powering a product recommendation engine or utilising machine vision to help users find the style they want\u201a AI is changing the way we shop in ways that are even seeping out into real-world retail sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the trailblazers in applying AI to fashion retail has been UK fast-fashion giant ASOS. The retailer began experimenting with AI and machine learning back in 2016 before quickly integrating the tech throughout its operations and services. Chatbots and visual search utilising a smartphone camera are just two fruits of the organisation\u2019s AI drive that customers can currently benefit from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In more subtle ways data and machine learning are also quietly transforming the way ASOS\u2019s customers interact with the site and choose their own styles. With over 5\u201a000 new products added every week\u201a the retailer is waging a constant battle to balance choice with the need to not overwhelm its customers \u2500 especially when 76 percent of visits are coming from mobile devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To combat this problem the company has been honing its algorithms in an attempt to only show customers items that they want to see. AI-powered recommendations are complemented by data crunching of customer orders and returns to gauge appropriate sizes and fitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its visual search feature\u201a which it launched in 2017\u201a allows users to snap a photo of an item they\u2019re interested in so that the ASOS app can recommend similar pieces. As with all machine learning algorithms it\u2019s learning all the time\u201a so the more images that are fed into the system the better it gets at recommending relevant items of clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course\u201a ASOS aren’t the only ones in the sector to be dabbling in this sort of tech. German fashion retailer Zolando\u00a0signalled its move into AI<\/a>\u00a0at the end of 2017 with personalised product recommendations based on whatever a user had in their basket. Meanwhile\u201a Italian giant Yoox Net-a-Porter recently\u00a0cut the ribbon<\/a>\u00a0on a new 500-headcount ‘Temple of innovation’ in London whose remit has AI at its core.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Shopping patterns have morphed over the years as ecommerce has come to dominate retail around the world. Although the degree to which online spend has overtaken in-store spend differs from country-to-country\u201a the trend towards online shopping is set to continue inexorably in the coming years; reaching $4.8trn globally by 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Convenience is one of the obvious drivers of this growth alongside cost and range. Pushing this idea of convenience even further are subscription services which are stripping back the browsing experience to the point where shoppers aren\u2019t even doing any browsing at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Services such as Thread in the UK and Stitch Fix in the US provide users with customisable boxes of new clothes which users have the option of either keeping or returning. Customers are given questions to determine their preferences\u201a asked to send in images of themselves along with items they already own and their budget. A personal stylist then sends recommendations and tips based on their selections.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAI-powered recommendations<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Wardrobe in a box<\/b><\/h3>\n\n\n\n