News

Students develop online fitting rooms

April 16, 2012

Who needs a fitting room at a brick-and-mortar store now that a company in Estonia has designed technology that allows customers to try on new clothes on their computers? No one, according to the Fits.me company that uses shape-shifting robotic mannequins combined with a new technology invented by students from two universities in the Republic of Estonia.

"Our robots and the Virtual Fitting Room technology have solved the main problem that online clothing retailers face — the lack of a fitting room," Heikki Haldre, the company's co-founder, told iol.com.

How it works

Shoppers enter their body measurements to see how a specific size fits them using data from Fits.me, which tests garments on the variable robotic mannequins to map how a particular brand's clothes would look on people of different dimensions. The robots can take on about 100,000 different body shapes, though only about 2,000 are being used for commercial purposes, according to the story.

Online fashion retailer Otto and U.S. retailer Park & Bond, among others, are using the technology. The company said its surveys reveal that retailers using the technology registered an average 57 percent increase in sales, and a 35 percent drop in volumes of returned goods.

Read more about online retailing.