Walmart has announced the rollout of a new tech tool called Choose My Model. This high end technology offers all the advantages of a fitting room on the big box retailer’s website. Customers need not try on a pile of clothes and then choose their favorites. The app will do the work. They just have to choose and click “buy.”
If you wondered how Choose My Model works here’s the answer. A shopper has to choose a person who resembles them in parameters including height, shape and skin tone. The tech tool will then use computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) to show how the chosen clothing item will flow. It will also show the fit on a similar body.
Last May, Walmart had acquired a start-up called Zeekit. This is the first tool that is being implemented by the company. It adds convenience as customers need not step into a store to try out clothes before buying them. They just have to visit the website and make their choice.
Denise Icandela, the executive vice president of apparel and private brands for Walmart in the nation said that everything came back to providing customers with the “confidence to make the purchase.” She added that they wanted to have a “best in class shopping experience online.”
She also said that the big box retailer thought that this would be the shopping of the future and wanted to be the leaders in this concept.
Icandela noted that the new tool would make the “buy” button a preferred option, more often with items that had a “higher price point” or if they were a new brand that the customer might be trying. She also added that Walmart could gain from a “lower rate of returns” after implementing the tech tool.
Walmart had launched “Choose My Model” with 50 female models and would add 70, according to Cheryl Ainoa, senior vice president of new businesses and emerging tech for Walmart Global Tech. She said that she if she she tried the feature herself, she could have tried only two pairs during a store visit or might not have even have to make the trip herself.
The feature is currently in beta for select items including the exclusive brands from Walmart such as Free Assembly, Scoop and Sofia Jeans. It will add national brands such as Hanes, Levi Strauss and more, in the future.
