Virtual dressing rooms: are they really useful?

The definition leaves no room for doubt, it seems obvious that we refer to any technology that allows us to experience the feeling of interacting with a product without establishing a physical contact. 

Augmented reality and its ability to incorporate digitally generated synthesis elements into real environments, was from the outset a technology that could help this integration with business very well (no matter if it is electronic). 

There is a certain number of people who hate to try their clothes on, many more than we can imagine. This, which is a personal choice, means a certain hassle for retail because many times it ends up in a bad user experience (as much as it has been sought by oneself) or refunds and changes which can be perfectly preventable. 

If this is a problem for retail (obsessed with finding updates that work at the point of sale ), for ECommerce gets a bit worse in terms of added difficulties. In this case, even if the customer wants to, he or she cannot try any product on for obvious reasons. Therefore, we find the reverse logistics, refunds and, again, the bad shopping experience for the customer. 

How does eCommerce solve it? In general, what they do is to use a system that is not very advanced but at least it serves as a reference: a chart with measurements of each part of the body and their sizes connection. 

Of course this can be done in a fairly approximate way when it comes to footwear, but how do textile fashion manufacturers solve this? 

A good solution, although not excessively scientific given the usual subjectivity of the audience, is to invite clients to tell what their feeling is and how they think that the garment looks  on them. So it does, for example, Rei: 

That bar under the average rating, tells us in a very visual and clear way,  that this pair of trousers are a little smaller than users consider to be perfect. 

It is a good way to generate content through the user and reinforce the social test, but we will agree that it is not the most optimal solution either. 

If we want a way to solve the situation as well as possible, it may be interesting to rely on the most advanced technology.

Without even involving virtual reality, we can find companies that have developed some really clever alternatives but, in many cases, it still implies that it is the client who is going to look for a tape measure to be measured. 

We can see, for example, how software Sizebay does which, according to its creators, makes the average ticket rise to 15% and reduce by 10% the rate of returns. Besides, introducing height and weight, we have the option to play with proportions. 

t is a step further, it does not reach the technical complexity of other solutions, but it is much more efficient than other classical alternatives. 

In this category we can find other software available in the market as Virtusize, whose strongest point is to compare"superimposing" a product with another that you have previously purchased in the same store (and therefore, you know how it fits). 

This is the real revolution and, surely, what you were thinking when you read the title of this post (as you can see this post goes further than it could seem). 

Augmented reality is a very powerful tool for both retailers and eCommerce. The first ones can find different alternatives in the market, some types of booths and implementations based on screens. A camera captures our image and overlaps that of the garment that we want to try on  without having to change clothes. Besides, the clothes accompanies our body thanks to motion sensors. A good example is this digital mirror of SenseMi: 

At eCommerce level, there are also some very interesting developments. Brands like GAP incorporate through their App a virtual dressing room that is not completely debugged(basically it is limited to show on screen a mannequin with our measurements). 

Amazon seems to be playing all its cards with this so there may be news in this regard soon, at least if we take a look at certain registered patents by this marketplace recently aimed at using a smart mirror. 

The benefits of using virtual dressing rooms go beyond clothing, some cosmetic brands and accessories have also included this technology in their strategy. 

A good example is Sephora (Anything made by this company in terms of technology needs to be taken into account like the use of chatbots). Its App allows you to try on almost your own skin range of makeup and different colors. Also, you can take a picture and then compare to another different. 

The brand of sunglasses Ray-Ban has also seen this potential for a while with its virtual model that you can try here by just using the webcam on your computer.