Apart from the nominal rise in consumption of textiles and apparels worldwide, the trend of shopping is gradually changing from the brick and mortar stores to the web and mobile devices. With the rapidly increasing competition in online shopping, several e-retailers have introduced shopping assisted technologies to boost clothing sales, especially in kidswear as it is the fastest growing segment in e-commerce. An example of shopping assisted technology is Alvakids, an indigenous new mobile phone application and online widget, introduced by the leading apparel sizing and fit expert company Alvanon. Alvakids help consumers buy the right size of garment by using the child’s birthday, height and weight to recommend the ‘right size’.
In a conversation with fibre2fashion, CEO of the Alvanon Group, Ms. Janice Wang-Millard said, “With the significant increase in online shopping, it has become clear that shopping assisted technologies is the key to increased sales conversion rates, reduced returns, customer satisfaction and loyalty.” “The shopping assisted technologies help parents to identify the right size of apparels to buy for their child in any given brand,” she informs. The global childrenswear market has evolved into a hugely complex sector where consumers are presented with a vast and potentially confusing array of styles, price points and shopping channels.
According to Ms. Millard the challenge to suppliers is to define their offer, design and target it at their chosen demography and then make it easily accessible to their targeted consumers. “An essential part of that process is to understand the ‘shape and size’ of the children they are targeting,” she mentions. “At Alvanon, we know that Dutch children from about four years old are taller than Chinese and American children and about 7-8 years old American children are wider at the waist than European children. So making clothes that takes these morphological differences into account are crucial in the success of a brand in any given country, as fit is one of the top three reasons a parent will buy a garment (after colour and style) as well as the number one reason for returning it,” she concludes.
