Fit for freedom

Key to helping consumers get the clothes they will love and keep, and cutting returns is listening and acting. To do that, retailers and brands will need to make much greater use of first party data and smart personalization technology, says Sarah Curran, Global CMO at True Fit.

To say that the fit of an item of clothing is highly personal is an understatement; in fact fit is one of the unique elements of an item along with colour and style that none of us can do without. Even when the item has been brought from a mass merchandise brand who may be manufacturing in the tens of thousands, for you or me, there is no other item like it anywhere else in the world.

This explains why some of us may spend a lifetime trying to find the perfect wardrobe, with a trail of rejects and thousands of lost pounds along the way spent on items that were too big, too small, too shapeless, too tight, too bright, too dark and so on.

Some people never make it, and more or less give up, thinking that there is simply not a garment out there that is exactly right for them. And this explains why so many of us hold onto certain items until they are beyond their useful life, maybe patched, faded, even ragged but for all that still loved. And dare we say, a bit cool because it expresses something unique about us. You all know which item in your wardrobe we are talking about; in fact, you are probably wearing it right now, perhaps shedding a tear that you will soon have to upcycle it.

And then you have to get back out into the cruel world of online fashion where the difference between small and small may actually be a medium; or where pink is puce, or rose or fuschia or any one of the 129 official shades of pink. Except the one you were looking for seems to be just out of reach. Either way, the thrill of the chase soon wears off, particularly if you have spent a lifetime putting up with frayed hems because you can’t come to terms with the fact that your legs aren’t quite as long as you’d like.

So that is the view from you, but what about from the retailers and brands? It would quite correct to say that they do care, but this desire to get the right product, particularly one that you will love and keep, plays out so inconsistently that there is still no agreement over standardised fit, style and colour.

And while the industry tries to agree on standards, it has introduced a raft of tools designed to cut down on the one thing that really hurts – returns, particularly online, where up to 30% of items bought digitally are returned in comparison to 10% in stores. This all added up to a cost of £7bn for UK retailers and brands in 2022. And the heaviest returners are Gen Z and Millennials.

And the British Fashion Council (BFC) has backed this research up through its industry bodies. In 2020, the BFC launched the Institute of Positive Fashion (IPF) to create a new industry standard for accountability by acting as a catalyst for change in the UK fashion industry to achieve greater circularity, and to confront returns, a major threat to sustainability.

While much of this initiative is focused on the supply chain, from manufacture to final disposal, it relies on tools that will enable customers to keep more of what they order first time around. The initiatives therefore range from what the industry needs to do on its own across to what consumers can do. For instance, the BFC surveyed the returning behaviour and needs of UK fashion shoppers in 2023, with specific insights on ‘high intensity online shoppers’ or shoppers who purchase more than two items per month online.

The biggest reason is wrong size or fit, the most voted returns reason by an overwhelming majority (93%) of respondents who had returned online purchases. Two thirds of respondents also commented on what they considered to be the three most helpful solutions. - detailed product descriptions, size calculators, and 360 degree product views.

What this comes to is, the use of professional fit technology which improves performance progressively by tapping into both first as well as third party customer data, can have a significant impact on customer returns behaviour. And in the process, enables brand to exchange information and have high value communications with customers that can in turn lead to greater loyalty and higher sales. And by integrating these transactions and communications them into a closed feedback loop, issues causing returns are confronted before they occur.

The good news is that consumers are prepared to play their part to get what they are looking for first time round. The research showed that most respondents would be willing to share their data for a digital avatar to try on products virtually. 74% of Millennials and 64% of Generation Z expressed a greater willingness to share information such as body measurements with brands and retailers to build a digital avatar for virtual fitting. And with the advent of the Metaverse, the quality of what consumers are able to share, will get about as close to an actual store visit as is so far possible.

More returns is no longer inevitable. With industry bodies backing brands to cut returns to improve sustainability and brands in turn cutting returns to cut costs and grow customer loyalty, while the problem may never go away, we surely can see a time when more and more consumers finally find their perfect fit.

About True Fit

True Fit is the leading platform for apparel and footwear retailers to optimise size and fit guidance and drive confidence for digital shoppers. Its platform consists of the broadest footwear, apparel and consumer data, representing 17,000 brands, hundreds of retailers and more than 80 million active shoppers. True Fit's dataset is organised and connected to streamline the buying experience, drive loyalty with shoppers and deliver insights and data services to retailers.