Latest / The Retail Podcast / How AI Is Doubling Fashion Conversions & Cutting Returns by 30% | Antonia Dumitriu, Irisphera

Transcript

How AI Is Doubling Fashion Conversions & Cutting Returns by 30% | Antonia Dumitriu, Irisphera · The Retail Podcast

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  They don't need to start from zero, they can have this add on
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  in order to strengthen brand positioning, communicate to
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  shoppers and attract shoppers on their website while also
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  offering confidence in the purchase.
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  Hello, welcome back to another fireless fantastic edition of
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  the Retail podcast. Now, as many of our community
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  listeners know that I am the number one person when it comes
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  to promoting fantastic talent OR when we see something that
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  potentially is in the early startup phase, we need to be
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  shouting about it because it's pretty much what we see the
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  future of retail being. And I like to introduce Antonio
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  Dimitri, who I probably butchered her surname, but
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  that's OK. It's see.
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  But Antonia, we, we've got just now talking before we start
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  recording. We've got some contacts are in
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  common. But when I heard what she was
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  doing and the problem that she's trying to solve, I thought this
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  is really interesting given the eugenic and AI world that we're
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  moving into, but more importantly, the human world
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  that we're moving into and how retailers need to keep meeting
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  their customers where they are. And so and Antonia, lovely to
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  meet you. Thank you for coming on the
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  show. Thank you.
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  Thank you so much, Alex. It's a pleasure to meet you.
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  And so let me let's take a step back.
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  What made you decide to start a company Up before we get into
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  what the company is, what what what drove you to start the
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  company? Thank you so much for the
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  question, so I can introduce myself a bit.
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  I started working as a stylist because since 16 years old I did
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  editorials for magazines like Photo, Vogue, Italy.
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  I created my own team in Romania and and I also decided to study
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  fashion styling and creative direction at Marangoni in Milan.
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  But before that, while I was still in high school, I was
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  working as a personal stylist and I observed how time
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  consuming and expensive it is, especially for women to find
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  what suits them best. And I thought of a way to make
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  the process really accessible to everyone and to make it
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  automatically. And this is how it started.
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  So from my personal needs to automate a long process which I
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  I found really really difficult. How?
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  I'm just curious because obviously you come from the
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  fashion world, how does, what's the how does AI fit into this
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  new world of fashion? What's your general perception
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  there? When we started developing this,
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  of course, the AI was emerging. Actually there was an open AI or
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  all of these waves. So for us, machine learning,
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  computer vision models were the only way to build this kind of
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  process in order to transform automatically the garments to
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  enable the virtual try on the virtual styling.
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  So this was the only way to make it accessible to brands.
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  And then of course, with with the pandemic, all the, all this
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  wave came up and we were right into it.
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  So This is why we developed our own proprietary technology
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  because of the beginning. It was like really nothing.
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  And I remember I was searching on Google like specific terms
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  like conscious shopping, and I couldn't find anything.
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  It was really emerging. So regarding the AI wave, this
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  is what I can, what I can tell for us and for the innovation,
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  it's a necessity and we need to find a real problem and solve
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  it, not the other way around. So invent the problem in order
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  to use AI and then try to sell it.
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  This is my perspective. I got you.
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  So why don't we get into like who is theatre is and tell me
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  what? What's it all about?
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  Yes, thank you. We offer online fashion brands a
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  plug in a virtual personal shopper so shoppers can either
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  customise A preset avatar for privacy concerts or upload a
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  photo based on the way they look.
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  We detect the right size based on brand size chart, the body
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  shape they have and also the right colour palette.
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  We automatically select the best clothing items and to boost
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  confidence in their purchase, we also enable visualisations on
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  themselves. So what we are aiming to do is
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  to help specialist small brands increase their conversions.
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  For small brands, we've already doubled the conversion rate
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  while reducing returns up to 30%.
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  And besides all that, of course, enhancing the customer
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  experience and bringing personalization is a key factor
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  in in our industry where of course, we have too many options
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  nowadays. So brands do need to find a
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  competitive advantage. We have also the solution
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  deployed in the Middle East where we developed also a
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  privacy concern solution where shoppers can easily customise
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  their preset avatar without the need to upload their photos and
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  in order to create the Omni channel experience, which is
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  another keyword. Nowadays, our technology can be
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  applied also in store where shoppers can mix and various
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  items before going to fitting room or before buying.
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  When we go into stores, we want to make sure that we get
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  something special because we are busy, we can shop easily online,
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  so This is why we truly need to create an experience in Store I.
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  Love it. I mean, there's some the first
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  thing I want to do is try it. I want to get a photo of myself
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  and see what that looks like because it does.
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  It feels to me as someone who loves, I love fashion, but
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  potentially, you know, I don't have the time and energy to go
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  to so many places and try so many things on.
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  It feels that you're solving unique problem as I don't know
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  how long you've had this deployed, but what's the sort of
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  feedback? What's the original feedback
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  that you're getting from your customers?
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  The feedback is absolutely amazing.
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  They true they really love this tool, but we are investing in
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  educating also the brands because we need to have a common
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  ground. We offer this tool that helps
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  them get more traffic into their website.
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  They can use it is in ads in order to attract more shoppers
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  to their websites. But at the same time, brands do
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  need to push a lot and enhance their communication, which means
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  send personalised newsletters, communicate that they launch
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  this tool. So we attract people and educate
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  not only brands but also shoppers in how to use it and
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  what exactly it does. So this is something really
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  important and if we reunite the forces, of course we will see
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  very good reports, which means again, doubling conversion
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  rates, reducing returns, but we really need to invest into
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  educating both shoppers and brands.
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  What? Do you feel that brand managers
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  or e-commerce managers are getting wrong?
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  Then what do they get wrong? What do they not like?
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  Because this seems like such a no brainer.
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  People should be like hey phoning you like 24 hours we
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  want this for our website so why are they not doing it?
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  What's the bad? I can give you an example from
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  real life, especially small and emerging designers don't know
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  how to promote their online businesses.
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  And the thing that maybe they should invest the beginning to
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  strengthen their brand positioning, really be well
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  known in the market and then get this kind of tools.
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  But what I tell them is they don't need to start from zero
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  from scratch. They can have this add on in
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  order to strengthen brand, communicate to shoppers and
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  attract shoppers on their website while also offering
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  confidence in the purchase. So I think the mentality of how
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  to use it because it's a technology that's really at the
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  emerging needs to be improved. Of course, brands do have
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  collaborations with influencers, so they can encourage right them
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  to try this tool, share it on Instagram so they engage with
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  with their community. And this is how you create,
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  let's say, the effect of being viral.
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  It's something at the beginning and it's nothing wrong.
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  We just need to educate, communicate and let's say
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  transmit best practises. I understand.
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  And what does that look like in terms of integration?
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  How difficult is it to integrate your technology into my
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  ecommerce stack? It is really easy.
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  We are partners with the Shopify, WooCommerce.
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  So for brands that use these platforms, it takes around 1
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  minutes to install and that's it.
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  From their side, we automatically process their
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  items, their designs and that's it.
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  So the onboarding is really simple.
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  Of course, for enterprises and custom, let's say websites, we
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  do integrate with API. We don't need any physical
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  samples, just their product feeds.
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  So is that simple? OK, final question.
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  When you as someone who works in the AI field and and within
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  fashion, how do you see the future of fashion and AI?
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  What, what is that future shopping experience?
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  What does it look like? Definitely personalization,
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  sustainability and Omni channel experiences.
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  So these are some keywords that really come to my mind when I
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  think of the future of fashion. But it's already happening.
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  And of course, until we'll see mass adoption of new
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  technologies, we need to start with early adopters and
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  implement this kind of technologies with brands that
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  have an online with this strategy.
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  And on the digital strategy, we see many, many brands that are
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  investing in physical stores, being present in malls and so
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  on. But many times there are
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  skipping the online part, which is, which is really important.
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  So it's a matter of time and it will constant, it will be
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  improved I think very fast. Sure, I got you.
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  I know I said That was the fun question, but this is, I
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  promise, the final question. What's the one?
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  Because I'm not an expert in this area, What's the one
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  question that people ask you that I haven't asked you?
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  The one question. Oh my God, the most popular
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  question? That's a difficult one.
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  OK, that means about you'll be important questions.
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  So it's OK, you're enough to have an answer, but it's just if
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  there's the if there is a is if there's normally I ask the
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  question if there's an area or something that maybe I've
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  overlooked because my understanding isn't, you know,
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  as deep in fashion or AI, but then you know.
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  I think what's our target market would be a good target market
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  and which we tried the the mass market to integrate at the
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  beginning and from what we've observed until now is not Europe
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  is the Middle East because they are really looking for emerging
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  technologies, new experiences. The luxury in the street there
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  is huge. Of course, they have large
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  retail groups with thousands or hundreds, thousands of brands.
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  So they are really looking into differentiating themselves.
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  And until now, yeah, a lot of traction of a lot of our
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  traction is from the Middle East and but we are also integrating
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  in in Europe. But this is something very
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  interesting that that I observed.
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  That's fantastic. Antonio.
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  Thank you so much for giving up your time and maybe I see you at
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  one of the many conferences that I'm at throughout the year.
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  Thank. You 100%.
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  Thank you so much, Alex for your time and further questions.