The consumption of clothing is increasing every year, which inevitably leads to more waste that is partly formed up from returned items due to the wrong size and fit. Tons of garments end up in landfills every year. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, every second textile garbage truck finishes up in a landfill or is being incinerated.
Another reason for the rise in waste is the growing popularity of online purchasing, which has changed the shopping experience and has also flooded retailers’ warehouses with returns, many of which go straight to landfill. Buying online, customers often have issues with the correct fitting of clothes. If the item is cheap, often buyers do not even return it at all, but simply throw it away because they find this option simpler.
Technologies to resolve waste production issue
However, the problem of size and fit in the long term can be easily solved by new fashion technologies. 3DLOOK creates various products aimed at streamlining the garment selection process and providing assistance to avoid returns and waste. Thus, customers save their time and effort. Digital 3D body scanning allows customers to calculate the girth of a person and form a body model taking into account all its parameters.
For example, 3DLOOK has developed YourFit, which is an application that allows you to take body measurements thanks to scanning technology. While shopping online, these fixed exact body data make it possible to determine which clothing size to choose.
But what are the benefits of digital scanning not for the individual buyer, but the business? Experts say online sales will grow steadily, manufacturers will be forced to follow their customers’ needs, and personalization will gradually become more accurate as clients’ data accumulates. Having digital measurements of the client will help to avoid mistakes when choosing clothes, but this data will have the greatest impact on business processes within the brand. Garment designers and constructors will receive up-to-date 3d body measurements of future buyers of their collections, so they can create items that will not stay on the shelves and will not be thrown away due to discrepancy in clothing size.
With this approach, costs will be minimized because clothing returns will be reduced to almost zero. The personalized process of choosing a garment will become familiar to the users and will greatly facilitate their choice and purchase of fashion products.
However, the advantages of body scanning technology can be applied not only to the fashion industry. The body measuring app opens up new possibilities for personalization and customization for many industries. Thus, for example, data from the bodies’ sizes of customers can be used by developers of video games, manufacturers of furniture, and car seats.
Key takeaways
In general, clothing manufacturers will have to evolve and move to the stage of conscious production, when all the chains of interaction within the company will be transparent. The use of customer body data will allow both small and large manufacturers to improve services, upgrade the quality of customer service, which will also lead to an increase of income and the development of new profitable offers.