Zalando improves its virtual fitting room with a 3D avatar

With its latest online fitting room experience, Zalando is taking personalization to another level. For the first time, customers can create a 3D avatar based on their own measurements, ensuring an accurate representation of their body shape. This new functionality is based on the body measurement technology launched by Zalando in 2023, allowing customers to benefit from an ever more personalized and realistic online shopping experience.

The new virtual fitting room is accessible in 14 European countries, including France, and provides access to a selection of Levi’s clothing for men and women. This experiment will be tested for four weeks in order to gather lessons and information necessary to continue developing this tool. Since the launch of the first pilot in 2022, more than 80,000 customers have used the virtual fitting roomwhich allowed them to better visualize the cuts of clothing, and thus reduce returns linked to size.

Have the right size

The importance of this type of technology is also highlighted by the analysis of data from a recent study commissioned by Zalando from YouGov which looks at the emotions associated with the purchasing experience: almost half of French respondents say that wrong-sized items negatively impact their mental health (46%). While the lack of space in store fitting rooms generates dissatisfaction among around 37% of those surveyed, uncertainty linked to the fit of clothes (25%), and size descriptions that are not precise enough ( 33%) and unreliable size guides (28%) are the main obstacles to online shopping. The greatest purchasing difficulties concern pants (21%), underwear (20%) and jeans (13%).

These factors significantly influence the shopping experience, so much so that 50% of French online shoppers return clothes at least once a year due to sizing issues. 65% said they would feel more confident making an online purchase if they could use a tool that gave them size recommendations based on their measurements.

Falling return rates

“In early versions of our virtual fitting room, 3D avatars were created from statistical modeling, using height, weight and gender to predict a silhouette. However, each body is unique. By integrating our body measurement technology into our virtual fitting room, customers can now create avatars that accurately reflect their body shape“, explains Pelin Anlu Bedirhanoglu, Size and Fit Director at Zalando. “Thanks to this technology, we have already seen a 40% reduction in return rates. Although these results are still limited due to the test phase, they constitute a promising indicator of the potential of this technological innovation in improving customer satisfaction but also partner brands.“

Laura Toledano, General Manager France at Zalando, adds: “This improved 3D avatar is part of our desire to make our customers’ shopping ever more personalized and improve their experience on our site. The survey figures speak for themselves. themselves, there is a real challenge in helping them find the right size on their first order. The technology used for our virtual fitting room has shown promising initial results, with a reduction in return rates up to now. at 40% during the testing phase Although these initial figures are based on a limited sample, they suggest potential for improvement in customer and brand partner satisfaction.”

With the new version of the Zalando virtual fitting room, Customers can now use their phone to easily see how different sizes look on their body while enjoying a 360° view. Additionally, they have the ability to zoom in and out to see details more precisely.