Fashion Retailing In an Era of Customization and Personalization

The fashion industry is growing rapidly and is in constant evolution. Online and offline retailers that don’t adapt to changes will be left behind. One such key area where apparel retailers require innovating is customization and personalization, as fashion-oriented customers want to buy the apparel that perfectly fits them and with unique color design and fabric that reflect their personality.

Years after 2019 will be remembered as the tipping point for online product customization and personalization, especially apparel and footwear. Consumer interest, and demand, for the option to personalize products based on individual tastes has reached critical mass. Thus, brands and retailers are increasingly recognizing the need and responding to the opportunity. At the design stage, the customization has already started to happen upstream. By collecting data and utilizing technologies like 3D, AI, machine learning, it becomes easier for fashion brands to manufacture personalized garments by gathering information and analysing customer preferences and utilize the results to improve the design and manufacturing processes.

Let’s dive into Customization and Personalization to know more about its benefits and the different software’s that can be used.

Customization:

Customization is a philosophy that believes in creating a unique value proposition for every customer. Customization is a subset of personalization where customers can customize a pre-existing product by applying designs, prints, images, colors, monograms, and texts.

As per Deloitte – We are entering an era of mass customization. More than 50 percent of consumers expressed interest in purchasing customized products or services. It is said that In the future, businesses that do not incorporate an element of personalization into their offering risk losing revenue and customer loyalty.

Levi Strauss & Co. is one of the fashion giant transitioning to an operating model for the digital era, leveraging new technology to radically reduce the time it takes to bring a product to market and unveiling a new ability for consumers to design their own pair of jeans.

True Fit is a US start-up that has created a data-driven personalization platform for fashion retailers. It has populated a huge database of fit and style data for apparel and footwear through its partnerships with top brands, retailers, and millions of consumers. It analyses this data using Big Data techniques and offers its personalization services to fashion retailer.

Giants of the online world like Amazon and Google are working on projects to create personalized clothing for a person based solely on their engagement with visual content – the types of clothes that a person buys or browses on a website, for example.

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Personalization:

Personalization in fashion is a complex topic. Even if two individuals wear the same size in apparel, but they will have different body shape, preferences and style expectations. To creating a really customized style and fit, you require knowing the crucial details and idea behind every style and its association to the customers who purchase them.

The availability of big data and analytics can be used by fashion companies strategically to tailor consumer experience and allow the customer to lead the way. The role of the consumer has shifted from one of passive observance to enabled dominance. They are no longer content with simply buying fashion products.

Fashion Design Software’s like 3D, can help your fashion business overcome a complex personalization situation. With the help of this tool, your customers can design their own clothes according to their preferences and style.

Few of software’s that can be used for Personalization and Customization are:

• Crea Create is the 2D CAD suite for creating and editing patterns. It is possible to create patterns from scratch or to digitize them using the optical pen, scanner or blackboard, with of Survey and Draw modules. With Create you can directly import proprietary formats, maintaining so all the seam information and internal extensions such as notches, buttons and holes.
• iDesigniBuy is a shoe and apparel design software that will facilitate your customers to design their apparel and footwear according to their requirements and specification such as color, size, style, etc. The tool comes with a number of features and a huge database of styles, colors and fits which assist your customers while designing their apparel and footwear. You can also collect data about your customer shopping behaviour by utilizing Big Data techniques to offer personalization services to your customers.
• T-Shirt Design Software: inkXE T-Shirt Design software is a web to print solution tailored for businesses who sell customized t shirts and other apparel. Customers can customize and design their t-shirts online during the buying process. Whereas business owners can manage their print industry from one tool. It provides robust features to meet all your product customization needs.

Benefits:

• Generate more Revenue: A study by Deloitte suggests that, on average, in different retail sectors, 36% of consumers would consider buying customised products or services. In addition, 48% of customers would be willing to wait longer for a customised product or service.
• Increase the profit margin: 1 in 5 of the 36% consumers would be willing to pay 20% more for a personalised or exclusive product! This indicates a shift in consumer mentality away from monetary cost, and towards inherent value.
• Better customer insight: We all know that data is crucial and important. If the brands allow their customers to customise the products, they will have the right customer data which can be leveraged to personalise future offerings. .
• Increase customer loyalty: Personalizing products doesn’t just help increase sales, it also keeps your customers satisfied, which promotes loyalty and word-of-mouth recommendations.

Conclusion:

Customization is not only offering services that will help to personalize a product, but it is something that impacts the entire shopping experience. It allows retailers and manufacturers to get closer to the customers and understand their choice in an era when consumer journeys are fragmented across various channels and the way to buy may take a few moments or many weeks. Using Clothing design software, the organization can understand a customer’s preferences by tapping into browsing and purchase history and so target better recommendations.

Using the above technologies and methods, brands and retailers can not only stay relevant in the coming years buts also increase revenues. Customization and Personalization is not the future of Fashion and Retail it is the present, therefore only the brands that adopt to this change will be successful.