After seeing Amazon have released Echo Look which is the “smart
style personalised assistant.” I thought I would dig a bit deeper in to how the
fashion industry is changing as a result of technology and the changing demands
of consumers. To date, 2018 has been the worst year since the millennium for
shop closures in the UK. House of Fraser are expected to close 31 of their 59
of their current stores by early 2019. So it is evident to see the massive
impact technology is having upon retail.
The reality is that these stores simply aren’t
meeting the demands of a new breed of consumers and as a result are having to
close. In contrast to this brands such as Zara are
optimising their business to appeal to the needs of consumers. It is no surprise Amancio
Ortega, Zara’s owner is one of the richest men in the world. Zara
operate like a tech firm and rely heavily on big data and data analysis. Zara
knows the average weight of residents in each of its shops’ locations and is
able to ship garments accordingly. Zara’s executives can even monitor each
store’s ambient temperature and energy consumption. As a result of Zara investing heavily use of technology they can use predictive analysis to monitor
trends and predict demand.
Again looking at new innovative ways to combat the high
street slump, L’Oréal’s Makeup Genius app, whose AR function lets people test
combinations of beauty products on their phones. Similarly Zara also have AR
apps to try on clothes and ASOS are using reverse image search to help find
clothes that match an image. This allows consumers to try on an unlimited
number of clothes which you would not normally be able to do in-store. As well
as this suggestions can be provided based off user-preferences and previous
purchase knowledge. This is something that can never be replicated in-store. This
also can reduce returned items another cost for online fashion retailers.
Further to this marketing for most fashion companies is
changing. Online “influencers” are the becoming a more popular medium to get
their message across to consumers. Makeup brands and fashion companies are
using social media to promote their products increasingly. It allows direct
access to a lucrative market. Stars of Love Island are consistently used to
market brands and online clothing which can be a real gold mine as followers of
these stars are often impressionable and easily influenced.
To conclude I believe if fashion brands on the high street
aren’t operating in strong cohesion with e-commerce or using technology to identify
future difficulties they are likely to end up going a similar way to Debenhams and
House of Fraser. Further to this it is no surprise that the fashion
brand dominating the fashion industry currently uses technology to identify customers’
needs and practically offers a personalised experience. I am interested to see
in the future to see how the fashion industry adopts such technologies such as Artificial
Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Big Data.
Credit must also go to these sources:
https://www.ie.edu/corporate-relations/insights/zara-technology-and-user-experience-as-drivers-of-business/
Follow @EdwardMuldrew
https://www.ie.edu/corporate-relations/insights/zara-technology-and-user-experience-as-drivers-of-business/
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