Too long, too short, too loose, too tight. A perfect fit seems elusive sometimes, leaving you with no choice but to package up the item and send it back. It’s the main hazard of buying clothes online, though a New Zealand tech company hopes to change all that.
Auckland-based StretchSense has created the ZozoSuit that aims to ensure your clothes order fits perfectly every single time. Looking something like a diving suit, the snugly fitting full-body smart garment contains 150 sensors that collect accurate measurements of your body size and shape when you put it on. An app then logs the information and sends it with your next order.
The consumer-ready wearable is the result of a collaboration between StretchSense and Japanese online fashion retailer StartToday, owner of the ZozoTown shopping portal.
The two companies believe the special suit will go toward “significantly” improving customer satisfaction while also pleasing the retailer as it should help to reduce the hassle of processing returns and sending out replacements.
But how will the online retailer distribute the ZozoSuit, and at what cost to its bottom line? We’ve reached out to StretchSense for more information on the precise plans it has for its high-tech suit and will update when we hear back.
Shin Jeong Park, StretchSense marketing director, says on the company’s website: “The ability to measure body size is just one of the applications possible with a smart sensing body suit. Stretch sensors are a great tool to capture information about how people move in the world; from that information you can draw conclusions about motion, pose and health. The data from our sensing technology is helping to push the boundaries of human performance.”
While the ZozoSuit’s technology certainly looks like it has the potential to cut down on returns, you still can’t beat trying a garment on to see how it feels and looks on you. In that case, it seems likely that any online fashion retailer utilizing such a suit will still be messing about with returns for some time to come — until perhaps an AI product surfaces that knows exactly what you like and sends perfectly-fitting items every time without so much as an order being placed.
