Have you ever, in a store, taken a garment by the hanger and put it against your body to estimate if it would fit you? This apparently simple gesture has a crucial role in your intention to buy: it allows you to project yourself in the garment, even before trying it on.
The projection is the moment when the desire to buy becomes an intention. The fitting then only comes as a verification.
It's a bit of an open door, but online, it's more difficult to project yourself since you can't try on the clothes.... Or even put them against your body to get an idea!
According to a survey conducted by Veesual in 2021, the main reason why customers hesitate to buy online is "I'm not sure if the garment looks good on me".
To increase the online transformation rate, it is therefore crucial to tackle this problem and help customers in the formation of their purchase intention.
To help imagine what the clothes look like when worn, the brands show pictures of the clothes worn by models.
Not surprisingly, these are the images that customers look at first. 70% of customers say they believe that seeing more images of the clothes they are wearing would be a strong incentive to buy when they hesitate.
However, many customers have told us of their dissatisfaction with these images:
"The images don't allow for identification and we have a hard time seeing how the garment would look on us."
"It makes you want to but it's hard to project: it always looks good on the model but I don't know what it will look like on me"
Here is what the clients we interviewed told us.
To help customers project themselves, you might as well start by showing them images that look like them.
An university study has shown that purchase intention increases between 175% and 300% when consumers are confronted with images of models who resemble them (in terms of morphology, age, skin color...).
There is a real interest in showing clients images with various mannequins that are personalized according to their profile or style.
More and more brands are looking to increase the diversity of models in their communication and on their e-commerce sites. But organizing shoots with a large number of models is difficult, and in any case each item is worn by only one of the models present.
New image creation technologies allow to change the clothes on the mannequins at will. This increases the number of images available to the brands, to help each customer to project himself with a mannequin that looks like him.
An engaging experience that makes the customer an active participant in his or her buying journey is likely to increase projection.
In a store, the intention to buy is built in several steps: we take the garment off the rack, we observe it, we look at it in the mirror, then we try it on, and finally we go to the checkout.
In the same way, online, we need to create interactive experiences that engage customers to help build the projection.
We rarely wear just one item of clothing: when we go fashion shopping, it is often with the intention of putting together an outfit.
This is why in stores, customers often try on several garments at the same time: by assembling the garments, they project themselves with a look.
To reproduce this experience online, brands use algorithms to recommend complementary items: the famous "shop the look".
But there is a real interest in letting customers make up their outfits themselves! It's the "mix & match" principle.
The virtual fitting consists in allowing the customer to choose the mannequin with which he identifies himself to visualize how the garment looks on someone who resembles him, whether in terms of morphology, skin color, age, hair type...
Just like looking at the clothes in the mirror in the store, they can therefore project themselves with the outfit and accelerate the confirmation of their purchase intention.
Setting up a virtual fitting room means allowing customers to create a look online and visualize it on a mannequin with which they identify. Thus, we accompany the projection not only via the morphology but also via the outfit.
Veesual's Model Try-On e-commerce plugin allows customers to build a look for themselves and choose which mannequin to view it on, according to their own projection criteria.
By helping customers to project themselves with several garments, we accelerate conversion, but we also increase the chances of generating cross-sell. This innovative experience is therefore a way to improve the performance of the online store.
