

AI-based approaches for demand projection, however, can reduce forecasting error by as much as 50 percent. But this is not always accurate because sales can be influenced by many factors that are hard to predict, such as changing trends. Traditionally, retailers base their estimate of current year’s sales on data from the prior year. Given the constant changes in fashion and design, retailers need to consistently keep up with the most current trends and predict consumer preferences for next season. In the documentary “Minimalism”, they share that there can be up to 52 seasons for clothing.

Additionally, AI-enabled shopping apps allow customers to take screenshots of clothes they see online, identify shoppable apparels and accessories in that photo, and then find the same outfit and shop for similar styles.ĪI-enhanced fashion design and manufacturing Customers are now able to take pictures of clothing they like or styles they want to imitate, and smart image recognition systems can match the photos to real life items available for sale. In addition to conversational systems, AI is making its way into ecommerce and mobile apps. This interaction provides greater satisfaction for the customer and much more valuable information for the fashion brand. Through back and forth dialog, the customer can find the optimal fashion product or accessory item. For example, when a customer needs new shoes or a dress, instead of interacting with a website or mobile app, they can simply have a conversation with an intelligent conversational agent. Using conversational interfaces, fashion brands can gather data by asking customers questions, understanding customer desires and trends, diving deeper into their purchase patterns, and suggesting related and add-on items. Increasingly, fashion brands are using AI and machine learning to maximize users’ shopping experience, improve the efficiency of sales systems through intelligent automation, and enhance the sales processes using predictive analytics and guided sales processes.įashion brands are also starting to leverage conversational assistants through chatbots and voice assistant devices such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Home, and Microsoft Cortana. Clothing and apparel brands are constantly looking for new ways to get their goods in front of buyers and create awareness and demand in the market. The fashion industry is just as much about creating demand and brand awareness as it is about the manufacturing of fashion products. AI technologies are transforming the fashion industry in every element of its value chain such as designing, manufacturing, logistics, marketing and sales.ĪI helping to promote and sell fashion goods Despite the established nature of the fashion industry, AI is fundamentally transforming the industry from the way that fashion companies manufacture their products to the way they are marketed and sold. So much so that Amazon acquired shoe retailer Zappos for $1 Billion in 2010, and major retailers such as Walmart, Target, Amazon, and others have themselves entered into the fashion retail business through their own brands and brand partnerships. Much of brick-and-mortar traditional retail as well as online e-commerce is dedicated to the sale of clothing and fashion items. The fashion industry is one of the biggest in the world, estimated at about 3 trillion dollars as of 2018, representing 2 percent of global GDP. As long as humans have started to wear clothes, we’d have the desire to express our own individuality, and one way to achieve that is through fashion.
