Digging Out of Online Fashion Sale? Check How AI Can Help You!

The online fashion industry is one of the most rapidly emerging industries. The enormous implications of fashion e-commerce spread over diverse areas like economic, social, etc.

The modern disruptive technologies which are improving since their inception are making their place in all the industries. Here we will talk about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the Online Fashion Industry. 

We are listing down the top 10 trends of Artificial Intelligence in fashion e-commerce industry based on improving merchandise and CX (customer experience).

1. Recommending Related Products to Your Search

Online shoppers will always leave the website if they don’t find anything of their interest, size, or it is out of stock. Here AI can play a significant role. With the help of advanced codes, the online portal can automatically suggest similar user items according to the searched query by the customer. You must have witnessed that whenever you are searching for any product, you will see other suggestions related to your search criteria. The related items can be shown in different sizes as well if the customer can’t find the correct size.

Such recommendations have an added advantage over the usual AI-based solutions that they don’t depend on the customer data or their behavioural data. These recommendations which suggest “based on your search” results, consider the visual resemblances of the things the customer is scrolling and watching. For recognizing the clothing items, the features of that item are extracted using the computer vision with the help of automatic image tagging tool.

2. The Widespread of Recommendation Engines

The factor in attracting consumers in conventional brick-and-mortar shops has specific rules. They showcase the items based on the latest trends and the products, which will give them more profits when sold. They sort of hide the less costly products in some not-easy-to-see shelves so that the people would only shop for the ones showcased on mannequins or kept in the right front of them, considering them the “in-fashion” trends.

It is widely known that traditional brick-and-mortar businesses used to (and still do) display products following specific rules. These are meant to attract customers to the items they want to sell the most. But, with the arrival of e-commerce and then the wave of the digital transformation, the goal of retailers has changed and shifted to “personalized merchandising”, based on their customers’ preference. Artificial Intelligence is, therefore, gaining popularity in the e-commerce area too.

The AI-enabled recommendation engines take into consideration the consumer’s behaviour and pop-up suggestions on your screen such as “People Also Viewed”, “Customers Also Bought”, “Frequently Bought Together”, and “You May Also Like”. Although all these AI-based algorithms can work on sufficient data, we need to feed the data first, and it can happen only when maximum customers come on the website. If there is a lack of data, like for newly added products, then the suggestions can be really disappointing and funny.

Some companies have already integrated such engines, and they make available the suggestions as per the users’ search. You can find such recommendations on many websites and applications nowadays. The more the data in the system, the better the predictions it will show for each customer. This, in turn, leads to higher profit and conversion rates. This method is combined with the first one – showing related products to the search.

3. Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Of course, chatbots and virtual assistants are being adopted in several fields, and e-commerce is not behind too. What do these things do is to suggest the user through chat a best suitable outfit or a pair of shoes or any such product so that the user gets the feel of a real assistant helping him/her during outdoor shopping.

The systems are fed with data with every customer coming online. The algorithms improve, based on the data and then the consumers get the more appropriate and relevant suggestion to their search and earlier purchase.

4. Pictorial Search

Have you ever been in a situation where you want to find something online desperately without actually knowing how is it actually put into words or what it is called in the typical terminology? Most of you must have been in this sort of situation, and this can be a very time-hogging and irritating situation. Here, the visual search or pictorial search comes to the rescue. Using this technique, people can click a picture of the product which they need to find and directly search for it online. You guys are probably familiar with Google Lens and Pinterest Lens.

This idea of visual search eliminates the hassle of searching by text and especially when you don’t know the exact terminology. The technique of image recognition and computer vision helps in matching the picture captured by the user and the search results display the best possible match via the catalogue of several online retailers. This technique is useful in driving conversions and increasing the reachability of customers to online stores.

5. Personal Virtual Stylists

Buying anything to wear from e-commerce is usually a headache as there is always a doubt whether it will fit or not. We all are aware of the fact that the same product of each size fits differently to the distinct body types. The same size of each brand also differs as the size L of brand ABC won’t be that similar to size L brand XYZ. These are the reasons why people get confused while online shopping and abandon if they don’t get sure about their size from the guide given.

Considering the US report, the return rate of online sales lies between the range of 20% to 40%, and the reason is ill-fitting. That’s why there are apps of personal virtual stylists that can be integrated into your website, and those are mobile friendly as well. The customers just have to fill their size-related information and the virtual stylist will pick up the correct size of that particular item the user chose. Due to Artificial Intelligence, the calculations are done in such a way that the person can find his/her best fit.

The customers can also call and talk to the human stylists available for that store and get sure about the fitting. Again, it all comes to data because more data means better learnings for the system and thus, better recommendations for customers.

Concluding this, we can say for sure that AI is making the online fashion industry reach new heights by trying to provide a complete customer experience. Several online fashion stores have adopted these techniques to attract customers and retain them. The e-commerce fashion store has grown up to this level that most people find it comfortable to buy online, cheers to Artificial Intelligence.