3 tips to increase online product discovery through outfits and looks
When a customer walks into a store, she rarely has in mind that she is looking for "a green cotton knee-length dress with three-quarter length sleeves and a V-neck" - maybe she is just looking for a summer dress for a wedding.
This is often how the customer journey begins: not with a specific product, but with ideas. In a store, the customer can look at the entire collection, be inspired by the silhouettes of the models, ask a salesperson for advice, take several items and combine them to try on looks... until she finds the right item or outfit.
Online, it's a different matter: you have to formulate your idea in key words, then browse through a large number of options. This works well if you know exactly what you want, but it doesn't necessarily encourage you to explore.
- Product discovery, a key issue in e-commerce
- What is product discovery? It is simply the fact that a customer finds a product that he wants to buy..
- Traditionally, the e-commerce response has been very analytical: make product descriptions more precise to improve search engine performance.
- But as the weight of e-commerce continues to increase in sales, it is becoming urgent for fashion brands to innovate to accompany customers in exploring online collections.
- "The online shopping experience has been thought of functionally; now it needs to replace in-store shopping," says Sarah Marzano, senior principal analyst at Gartner for Marketers, in Vogue Business.
Work on product discovery to increase sales
Improving online product discovery also means creating the possibility for the customer to buy items that they had not anticipated. This increases the number of items per transaction and the average shopping cart, and therefore generates additional revenue.
Product discovery also means ensuring that customers can see the range of products available without having to scroll endlessly, to encourage cross-category purchasing and the rotation of slower moving products.
The look, a special tool to promote product discovery in fashion
Fashion brands know it well: the look is the secret weapon to make people discover the clothes in situation. Whether it's brand lookbooks or influencer #ootd, there's no better way to showcase a product than to show it worn in a stylish outfit.
In the same way that the statuesque mannequins of the shop windows are the object of a well thought-out styling, the outfits worn on the photos of the e-commerce sites answer precise objectives of putting forward the products.
According to a survey conducted by Veesual in 2021, nearly one in two customers are in the habit of looking for complementary items on photos of mannequins on the product page.
It just goes to show that the look is a key element in exploring the collection and discovering the products.
Dynamic look recommendations, a tool for product discovery
Most fashion sites now include in their product recommendation systems not only the recommendation of similar items but also complementary items to "complete the look".
Recommendation engines take into account both the brand's business objectives and customer data to always push the most relevant combination.
By highlighting the recommendation in the form of an outfit, we maximize its effectiveness. The look creation engine Stylitics has announced a 20% increase in the number of items per basket thanks to its personalized look system.
Giving the customer a hand in choosing his outfit, a true product discovery experience
In the store, the customer is not always accompanied by a salesperson who will recommend this or that article to complete his outfit. Some customers prefer to browse the collection themselves and try on several combinations in the booth before choosing their look.
To recreate this product discovery experience in e-commerce, it is necessary to let the customer create his assortments in a fun and engaging way.
Veesual's Mix&Match module allows customers to explore the collection via a "Shuffle" button that refreshes the proposed look. In a few seconds, the customer is exposed to a large number of products and outfits, and is projected with the outfits.
Create your look on a mannequin, to combine product discovery and projection
To reproduce online the experience of trying on a look in store, there's nothing like allowing customers to create their looks directly on a mannequin. You choose the clothes, and you see how they look when worn... without having to try them on!
To further engage customers in the online product discovery experience, Veesual's Model Try-On experience allows everyone to create a look and visualize it on a mannequin that resembles them (age, morphology, skin color, hair...)
In fact, a university study showed that purchase intent increases by 200% when customers see a mannequin that looks like them. Allowing customers to create looks and visualize them on a mannequin not only promotes product discovery but also improves transformation.
RESOURCES
Discover our new article
Veesual raises 5 million euros
We are thrilled to announce that AVP and Techstars are joining our journey at Veesual. This exciting development marks a significant milestone as we aim to become a global leader in AI-powered image-generation technologies for fashion.
Why does personalization make a difference in fashion e-commerce?
Nowadays, fashion e-commerce is a very competitive sector, with increasingly demanding customers. Fashion brands have to find solutions to stand out, increase their performance and satisfy their customers. It's no longer just about offering the best products, but also about providing an impeccable shopping experience. Personalization is a solution to meet this challenge.
Myth 1: Virtual fittings are not realistic, because you can't actually try on the clothes.
In the fashion e-commerce sector, virtual fitting has become a must-have feature, but it remains a controversial subject for some.In a series of articles, we're going to demystify the myths surrounding virtual fitting. The first is that virtual fitting is ineffective because it doesn't offer a real fitting experience. We can start by recalling that e-commerce customers are those who rarely, if ever, visit physical stores, for a number of reasons: lack of time, no attraction to in-store waiting, especially for fitting room queues. Brands need to be able to adapt to these customers, because the need remains the same: to buy clothes. And, as in a physical store, this purchase is based on several aspects and questions: "does it fit me", "do I like it", "what would it go with"... The virtual fitting experience answers these questions by reproducing as closely as possible the fitting room in a physical store.