Augmented reality as a tool for online fashion retailing

Abstract

As fashion trends come and go faster than ever due to the rapid trend cycles seen in fast fashion, the fashion industry keeps increasing in size constantly. Virtually all humans are consumers in the fashion industry since we need clothes to go on with our everyday lives which is why the customer base for the fashion industry is huge. To satisfy the needs of a large crowd, fashion retailers need to have good online storefronts in addition to their traditional brick and mortar counterparts.

In the 21st century the world has seen a fast-paced digital transformation which has pushed fashion retailers, among many others, to take a step towards the online world. The popularization of online fashion stores hasn’t come without any problems – it’s not always easy to judge the fit and the look of clothes without seeing them in real life. Having to make the purchase decision based almost solely on pictures of the garment and usually without the help of a salesperson leads to high return rates on fashion e-commerce sites and can decrease customer satisfaction.

The issues regarding shopping for clothes online could be solved with the help of augmented reality. Implementing an augmented reality system on a fashion retailer’s website could help customers view the clothes in a more precise way and increase certainty about purchase intentions by giving the customers a realistic, immersive shopping experience.