The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
A CORUÑA, Spain — Zara, the fashion chain owned by the world's biggest clothing retailer Inditex, will introduce augmented reality displays from April, it said on Tuesday, in an effort to lure millennials into its stores.
Clothing retailers are having to invest in memorable product demonstrations and store-specific content to attract customers in their twenties and early thirties, whose increasing use of online players such as Amazon has ravaged bricks-and-mortar retail chains in recent years.
Zara's latest technological push shows models wearing selected looks from its ranges when a mobile phone is held up to a sensor within the store or designated shop windows, with customers able to click through to buy the clothes.
Inditex, known for whisking the latest fashions from catwalk to store rails in a matter of days, has weathered the onslaught from online rivals relatively well, analysts say.
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"It is now very rare in the physical stores-based part of the retail sector to find companies not disrupted by online," Anne Critchlow, of Societe Generale, said in a recent note.
"However, Inditex is a rare example of a company that should fare relatively well."
Rival H&M is also investing in technology for enhanced customer engagement, it said at an investors' day in February.
Zara's augmented reality displays will be introduced in 120 stores worldwide from April 18, Inditex said.
The technology will also enable models to pop up on packages of online purchases delivered to customers, showing alternative outfits.
By Sonya Dowsett; editor: David Goodman.
TikTok’s first time sponsoring the glitzy event comes just as the US effectively deemed the company a national security threat under its current ownership, raising complications for Condé Nast and the gala’s other organisers.
BoF Careers provides essential sector insights for fashion's technology and e-commerce professionals this month, to help you decode fashion’s commercial and creative landscape.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely.
The app, owned by TikTok parent company ByteDance, has been promising to help emerging US labels get started selling in China at the same time that TikTok stares down a ban by the US for its ties to China.