How Fitizzy is supporting the textile industry through Covid-19
Faced with the Covid-19 crisis, textile manufacturers have had to reinvent themselves. Companies that had not yet made the move to digital embarked on a genuine digital transformation. The others, already well established online, strengthened their positions. Fitizzy was there alongside them. E-commerce, a digital platform for B2B textiles, putting data to work… Find out how clothing manufacturers kept their businesses going through the pandemic, with Fitizzy's support.
In 2020, the clothing sector took the full force of the economic crisis caused by Covid-19. According to the research firm Euromonitor International, “close to 40% of companies in the sector expect an impact on their revenue that is ‘far worse’ than that of the 2008 financial crisis”. It forecasts a drop of at least 12% in global clothing and footwear sales for 2020.
Against that backdrop, the coronavirus pushed brands to go digital even faster in order to survive, to engage with their customers differently and to rethink their production chains. In a way, the current crisis has acted as an accelerator for trends that were already taking shape.
At Fitizzy, we supported them with our three solutions:
- E-commerce solution
- Platform for professional clothing
- Data analysis platform (Morphology & behaviour)
Grow your online sales with a “customer centric” approach
According to Fevad (the French federation of e-commerce and distance selling), online sales by store-based retail chains grew considerably in 2020: +29% over the third quarter of 2020. Fashion and clothing brands with an online presence rode that wave, with growth of +17% over the same period.
At Fitizzy, we support a number of those brands with our E-Commerce plugin. The solution allows them to take a “customer centric” approach. The aim: to offer their customers a personalised experience.
On their e-commerce site, and more specifically on their product pages, we install our plugin as a “Find your size” call-to-action button. When shoppers click that button, they are asked to enter a few details about their body shape. That data is cross-referenced with the brand's technical information to give them a recommendation of the best-fitting size for the garment they have chosen.
Today, some fifty brands in the clothing sector use this service.
- It clearly gives online shoppers confidence when they buy – they are less afraid of getting the size wrong.
- It increases basket value and the number of items bought.
- It also cuts customer returns considerably after an online order. Those returns, free for the consumer, are very costly for the retailer (€8 to €15 per return).
- And finally, at a time when the fashion industry is adjusting to lockdowns, social distancing and the ban on fitting rooms, this e-commerce solution has encouraged online purchases, and click & collect along with them.
Take measurements remotely
More and more companies need to clothe their staff. Until now, these organisations have gone through firms that send out agents to record every employee's measurements on site.
Yet with the pandemic and the social distancing it imposes, taking those measurements “on site” has been harder to carry out, since fittings are not allowed.
Through our professional clothing platform and our solution for collecting wearer data with our “Fitiforms”, these companies have found an alternative that avoids meeting in person. They have been able to take those measurements remotely and digitalise the production stages for this professional clothing.
On the platform, employees fill in a form where they enter data about their body shape (height, shoulder width, chest, stomach…) along with information specific to each job, so that the garment sits properly.
Based on the information collected, the solution produces size recommendations for every uniform ordered.
Thanks to this system, companies:
- cut their travel costs,
- make far fewer mistakes in the number of items to be produced,
- optimise their administration and delivery costs.
Give your new business models a boost
Producing a run of products as accurately as possible, saving time while doing it, and being kinder to the environment. Every textile manufacturer shares those three ambitions.
That is now within reach, provided you make good use of your data. According to the study “Les nouveaux modèles économiques de la mode”, carried out by the consultancy Kea&Partners, “innovation, whether technological or organisational”, is crucial to inventing new business models in the sector.
“The industry's two major challenges are its need for greater flexibility in an ever more uncertain climate, and its necessary reinvention around greater social and environmental responsibility”, Kea&Partners tells us.
With Fitizzy's data platform, brands and research firms are able to analyse several sets of data relating to the morphology of their target audience (height, and so on) in order to produce their next collections more accurately.
Their goals:
- to know their customers better
- to get a clearer read on trends.
In order to:
- sharpen what makes them distinctive by amplifying their USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
- And become more efficient.
Clearly, 2020, a year shaped by the health crisis, saw sweeping changes in the retail sector accelerate dramatically.
As the fashion industry adapts to social distancing, we can expect to see growth in the personal shopping experience.
A fine opportunity for brands, manufacturers and retailers to get closer still to their target audience.
If you would like to find out more about our solutions
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