Issue Story

From the September 2006 issue of MR Magazine

Marketwatch

Technology: New Tools, New Rules

By Craig Crawford

Three emerging retail technologies aim to enhance the consumer experience and increase retailer profit

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s it worth to a retailer’s bottom line?

It’s Friday night after closing, and boxes of new product, promotional signage and new display units are in.  Overnight your store needs to be set up for the new season. 

You tear up the corporate presentation book into single pages and thrust them into the hands of your staff.  Individuals begin to work on different walls, sections or fixtures using the presentation pages as guides.

By 3 a.m., you learn that some of the product is different from that in the book.  So are some of the signs, perhaps even the fixtures.  You can’t find all of your updates to the book, so what do you do?  Make it up as you go, and hope for the best.

At the end of the next week, you discover that your sales were far below projected expectations.  Why?

“From Wal-Mart to Neiman Marcus, the way a retailer shifts and moves product is a universal issue,” explained Visuality business development manager Simon Poulton.  “You’ve spent millions of dollars on product.  How do you make sure it all hangs together?”

“We know that if you improve visual communications at the retail level, you will improve sales,” explained Visuality executive vice president Danette Gorman.

“If I can see it, I can react to it and be excited by it,” she said, “and that’s what Visuality is all about.”

Replacing emails, mailed photos, and phone calls with vmails, this on-line real time visual merchandising tool allows users to quickly post, mark up and discuss digital photos—all through a secure website.  

“The way you use email to communicate text is the way you use vmail to communicate pictures.  It’s as simple as that,” explained Susanne Scher, Visuality vice president of marketing.

Store walk-throughs can take up to two weeks from the start of a season, and in smaller doors may never take place at all, Scher said.

“Visuality provides instantaneous problem solving at the store level—eliminating the wasted two weeks of selling time,” she explained.

“Retailers need immediate spontaneous problem solving everyday.  Every problem solved equals potential sales. With Visuality, you see the floor of any store at a moment’s notice.”

The process is so simple that some users can be up and running on day one.  Training takes 1.5 hours.

Using Visuality after your store set-up, you spend five minutes taking digital photos.  Ten minutes later you’ve uploaded them to the site and added your comments using the software.  Less than a minute later, you’ve sent your presentation and a vmail arrives to the intended recipient.  By clicking on the link in the vmail, your boss can quickly review your presentation, direct any changes by commenting on the photos -- marking them up as required – and respond back to you.  Updates are made in real time, and every time a user looks at the images, updates are seen automatically.

As a former marketing director for the Gap, Scher guided the team responsible for creating and distributing that company’s visual merchandising presentation books—a mini-catalog with 1,000 pages a month.

According to Scher, the lead time required to produce the book meant that by the time it was in the hands of the stores, much of its content had already changed.

“Managers don’t often read the big book, or stay on top of weekly updates,” explained Visuality CEO Joseph Shohfi, “and if they do, it’s usually all in text.”

“Fashion is visually driven and yet we have had no tool to communicate visually.  Isn’t that funny?” Scher asked.

After bringing Visuality to the Gap, she joined Visuality because she believes it will change the way retailers approach the store experience.

“For larger stores, Visuality will not take the place of the printed book,” she said.  “The book needs to be on hand to be torn up and distributed for the 3 a.m. store set-up.  But for smaller stores, it could become the way store presentations are conveyed.”

The product is also used to quickly communicate new promotions, facilitate walk-throughs and, in some cases, eliminate them.  It has also been embraced by manufacturers as well as product development offices to communicate with imagery design ideas and issues.

More than a dozen European clients and nearly two dozen US clients have begun exchanging vmails and report benefits that include:

• A retail sales increase of 11.4% in customer pilot stores that had Visuality compared to their stores that did not;
• As much as 72% reduction in courier and expedited shipping costs;
• Time spent by store management/staff reviewing directives reduced by 4.6 hours per week per store;
• Clearer communications, less back and forth;
• More stores covered in less time; and
• An increase of 5.6% in sales of 10% of lower performing stores.

Approximate cost: $1,000 per store

For more information, go to www.visualitylife.com.

Knit-stant Gratification

Like a scene from “Blade Runner,” you walk into a high-tech boutique where computers are lined up on tables in front of hundreds of yarns in all shapes and colors hanging like the tentacles from a thousand men-of-war.

Nearby a few samples are carefully folded or displayed on mannequins.  None of the garments have any seams.

In the corner you see a photo booth and farther back you peek into another room where there are strange elongated machines that whirr away, spitting out the seamless garments.

You choose some colors, play with and select some yarns, and approach the sales associate behind the computer.

She scans in your yarn selections, adds the colors you’ve requested and starts a program that makes a simulated knitted garment on the screen right before your eyes.

She guides you into the photo booth and takes your picture.  Suddenly you see yourself on the computer screen.  The sales associate begins to “dress” you on screen in the digital knitwear she’s just created.  You comment on color, fit, shape. 

Finally you agree on the look.  Your sales associate extracts your exact measurements from the photo and through her software starts one of those machines in the back room.

Within hours, your seamless knitwear is complete.

In Wakayama, Japan, this is not a futuristic scene from a movie.  At the Shima Seiki Knit Factory Boutique, this is now.

“When we started this concept in 1995, the technology was so different and seamless knit garments were a very big challenge,” explained Shima Seiki USA sales manager Matthew Llewellyn.  “It took months and months of training and a very extensive technical understanding of knitwear. Today the new systems are simple to operate, and we can now more easily program seamless sweaters and garments using flatbed technology to knit what we call WholeGarments.”

Shima Seiki WholeGarment seamless turtleneck sweater, digitally printed to resemble denim jacket over striped shirt (Jeans by R.M.C. by Martin Kshohoh/Photograph by Robert Mendolia)

Flatbed knitting technology differs from circular or tubular knitting which is often cut and sewn to create fully finished garments.

Buttonholes, pockets, collars, and plackets can also be incorporated in the WholeGarment, but due to costs, manufacturers sometimes choose to add those on manually.

SDS One, Shima Seiki’s Computer Aided Design system, creates the knit data that drive manufacturing behind the scenes as knit simulations are designed.  The data include efficiency information, technical feasibility, and the time it will take to knit the garment.

“The system calculates the exact amount of yarn required, based on the technical specifications that are entered,” Llewellyn explained.

“Seams in knitwear can give different qualities to the size and fit of a garment.  If it’s seamless, then the quantities are exact and the measurements do not need adjustment.

“Designers are free to design anything they want,” he said.  “If it can’t be produced, the system won’t simulate it.”

The Knit Factory Boutique has a high percentage of return customers, he said.  Repeat business is easy because all size and measurement information is kept on file.

Improvements in color technology allow scanner, monitor and printer to be calibrated so that what the consumer sees on the screen is what he is going to get.

“The customer sees the yarn and is actually holding it, so he knows the correct color,” Llewellyn explained.  “And the loop simulation software is so advanced that it takes into account grin through, shadows, and slubbing, so that what you see on screen is what will be produced.”

At the Knit Factory Boutique, custom sweaters retail anywhere from $150 to $300 and can be made in cotton, wool, blends and synthetics.

Generally customers do not wait for sweaters to be knit immediately; instead they return the next week to pick them up.

To date, this concept has not been launched in the US, but Llewellyn sees a market for it.

“As part of implementation, we will help with sourcing yarns, training employees, and setting up the systems,” he said.

Basic designs are quick to train and he estimates that a retailer could be up and running in three to six months.

“Special techniques, unique designs and the like require on-going training,” he added.

Approximate cost: $250,000 not including yarns and retail floor space

For more information, go to www.shimaseiki.co.jp/relatede/boutiquee.html.

Itty-Bitty Scanner Committee

Cell phones are so small that they are almost the size of credit cards.  Televisions can be viewed on wristwatches.  Music playing devices are the size of packs of chewing gum.

So too have 3D body scanners shrunk—so small in fact, that next year they will fit into the size of existing fitting rooms.

Karen Davis is marketing communications specialist for TC2, a not-for-profit research consortium that provides solutions for the sewn products and related soft goods industry specializing in technology development and supply chain improvements, and inventors of the 3D body scanner used by apparel retailers, explained.

“Many retailers do not want to give up floor space to technology when it could be used for merchandise,” she said. 

And so in 2005, TC2 introduced the 45-sq.-ft. scanner (5’x9’) that replaces the 65-sq.-ft. scanner introduced in 2000.  Next year, they are introducing a 16-sq.-ft. scanner (4’x 4’).

Both are easier to operate and extract data; there are no moving parts, and calibration is not as tedious.

Body scan sample with measurement extractions (courtesy of TC2)

But by no means are they plug-and-play.

Retailers need to determine which areas of measure they would like to extract from the scan.  Profiles need to be created to include things such as ease in the garment fit.  And patternmaking skills are required to adjust patterns as this data is translated into the retailer’s patternmaking system (another bit of technology not included with the scanner), Davis explained.

Brooks Brothers was a pioneer with its installation of the 65-sq.-ft. model in its Madison Avenue location in New York several years ago.

“When Brooks Brothers implemented 3D body scanning for its custom made clothing, it was meant to be the main event, to draw a crowd,” explained Brooks Brothers president Joe Dixon.

“It was the new way to do custom, combining the quality and value of traditional made-to-measure tailoring with a high tech twist.  There was a big ‘wow factor,’ something almost un-Brooksy about it, and yet behind it all was what you love about Brooks Brothers.

“Over the years, we’ve fine tuned and developed this custom experience, and now we view this technology as a 3D tape measure, another tool used by the tailor." 

Scanners will now be discreetly tucked into the changing rooms,” he said. “Every new store built and every renovation will be equipped with a scanner ready room."

In 2006, there will be three or four additional installations including the current renovation of the Short Hills, NJ, store, he said. And with the introduction of the even smaller scanner in 2007, plans to retro-fit existing fitting rooms to accommodate the device are underway.

The prototype made-to-measure body scan installation at Brooks Brothers (courtesy TC2)

"We feel that this technology is key at Brooks Brothers, and it is the right way to service our customer in a way he feels comfortable,” Dixon said.

One-tenth of Brooks Brothers’ business is custom, and through the use of this technology, Dixon hopes to aggressively grow that business.

BenchMark Clothiers of Jacksonville, AR, has also been keeping abreast of the ever-shrinking scanner.

At the recent Big and Tall Men’s Apparel Needs (B.A.T.M.A.N) show in Memphis, BenchMark announced another business model for the 3D scanner made-to-measure business—a lease option for retailers that includes garment manufacturing.

“Between now and December, we are deploying 17 of the 45-sq.-ft. scanners as part of a 10’ x 17’ footprint that includes a 100-unit necktie display, seven unique shirt collar variations, and a selection of sample jackets,” explained BenchMark Clothiers president Kevin Lewis.

The goal is to provide an affordable made-to-measure turnkey solution using 3D body scanning technology to retailers with four or less stores.

BenchMark Clothiers made-to-measure body scan unit with display

 

BenchMark will provide fabrics, training, technical support, and system maintenance.  And because BenchMark is handling the manufacturing, the retailer does not need a patternmaking system or patternmaking experience.

Retailers also have the option of using BenchMark as a private label made-to-measure provider, or not.  In addition, BenchMark is providing marketing materials and services to maximize exposure for the retailer.

And if that’s not enough, incentive rebates are offered that, volume permitting, could completely offset the cost of leasing.

Suggested retail prices for suits range from $499 to $849, competitive with off-the-rack garments.  New styles and fabrics will be periodically added to the collection.

“We have spent four years with a couple of retailers programming the front end to be user friendly, and perfecting the back end for manufacturing,” Lewis explained. “We have implementations underway in California; Washington, DC; Florida; Missouri; Nevada; North Carolina; Texas and Virginia."

Approximate cost to buy 3D scanner including measurement extracting software: $50,000

Approximate cost to buy Patternmaking system required to create patterns: $50,000

Cost to lease: $1400-$1500 annually

For more information, go to www.tc2.com and www.benchmarkretailer.com.