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Walmart introduces virtual fitting room which uses shopper’s photo

Date: September 16, 2022 Pooja Sharma Pooja Sharma
Walmart introduces virtual fitting room which uses shopper’s photo 
American retail giant, Walmart, has reportedly rolled out a virtual fitting room, through which customers can try out any clothing item to see how it would look on them, in a bid to encourage them to buy the item.



This feature was added after Walmart acquired fashion-technology startup, Zeekit, which developed the virtual fitting room.



The first version of this tool was released earlier in March, allowing users to select a model resembling their own body type, hair color, and skin tone, and expanded from 50 models to 120.



Other retail giants like Amazon have also experimented with the virtual try-on tech, having a tool that employs AR so shoppers can see how a shoe would look on their feet.



Walmart’s latest feature, ‘Be Your Own Model’, uses machine learning and algorithms with which shoppers can try over 270,000 items virtually across the company’s private brands. Buyers can also try certain items from American brands, such as Levi’s, Champion, and Hanes, along with other brands featured on its third-party marketplace.



Shoppers will have the option of either using their own picture or of a model that shares similar physical features.



The website will scan a person’s body to offer a realistic sense of how the item’s fabric will drape, the color will appear, and where the sleeve or the hem reaches, without them having to go to a physical store.



The move comes at a time where selling clothes has become more difficult amid soaring inflation in the U.S., which has driven the prices of food, rent, and other items to the room leading to consumers cutting back on spending wherever they could.



Walmart joins the list of companies, such as Target and Best Buy, who have lowered their full-year profit outlook amid consumers buying less discretionary merchandise.  The big-box retailer is now expecting a decline of 9-11% per share in adjusted earnings.



However, the company also raised its sales outlook last month after seeing a rise in shoppers looking for low-priced essentials and groceries, adding that more customers with $100,000 or more in annual household incomes were shopping at its stores.



Source credit: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/15/walmart-unveils-virtual-fitting-room-to-push-shoppers-to-buy-more-clothes.html

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Pooja Sharma

Pursuing her professional career as a content writer for over two years now, Pooja Sharma is endowed with a post-graduate degree in English Literature. The articles that she writes are a balanced blend of her ever-growing love of language and the technical expertise that she has gained over the years. Currently Pooja pens insightful articles for Newsorigins and numerous other websites, covering subjects such as business, finance, and technology.