Fashion e-tailer incorporates body scanning tech

Online marketplace Zalando will begin incorporating a body scanning app to help customers choose better-fitting clothes

Spotted: The next hot trend in fashion? A number of companies are betting that it is body scanning technology. This technology has a number of potential uses, including allowing the creation of virtual dressing rooms and helping fashion companies eliminate waste by manufacturing clothes to order. European online marketplace Zalando is one of those that are betting on this technology – they have just announced the acquisition of Swiss computer vision tech company, Fision.

Fision has already developed a virtual dressing room that uses a body scanning app to let customers see how exactly how they would look in any garment before they buy. Zalando hopes that incorporating the app into their platform could help reduce the rate of returns due to poor fit. 

The app generates precise body measurements of customers, which can then help Zalando’s algorithm recommend better-fitting clothes. The information generated will also be fed back to brands selling on Zalando, to help them gain a better understanding of how their garment sizing suits their target audience.

Zalando’s CTO, Jim Freeman, explained, “We are constantly on the lookout for new teams and technologies that can help us provide the best experience to our customers along their entire fashion journey. We will continue to invest in strengthening Zalando’s tech capabilities in order to propel us on our path to become the starting point for millions of fashion customers across Europe.”

Zalando is not alone in investing in technology to help customers get a better fit. Upmarket clothing e-tailer Boden recently revealed that it is using a sizing tool developed by True Fit, which provides customers with fit and size recommendations based on personal preference data points. At Springwise, we have covered other apps that make use of similar technology to reduce waste in fashion. These include an app that can give personalised fit and style recommendations and a platform that creates custom, sustainable designs.

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