Robotic Mannequin Helps You Buy Clothes Online

The fact that you can't try on clothes before buying them online, results in a very high rate of returned merchandise for online stores. Now there's a robotic mannequin available to virtually try on your clothes for you.

I discovered these new robot mannequins in an article published on VentureBeat, and the company that creates them is called Fits.me

Fits.me aims to reduce clothes returned to online stores because they don't fit, or because some dimension of the garment wasn't what the shopper was expecting to see, once they tried on the clothes at home. Fits.me do this by allowing you to see clothes on a virtual mannequin with the same dimensions of your body.

The mannequins have artificial muscles that can simulate the shape and size of your body. The robotic mannequin doesn't actually try on your clothes, instead, sizing samples are put on the robot from a database of generic body shapes, and the results are photographed.

After a trials period with a German retailer, Fits.me increased sales 3 times and reduced returns by 28%, and Fits.me just signed UK shirt maker Hawes and Curtis as its first commercial customer.

So this is good news for online clothing stores to reduce the returns rate of clothes that don't fit, and better helps us shoppers in making an easier purchasing decision.