No more dressing rooms: This virtual fitting experience is moving into Brookfield malls

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Tired of schlepping into dressing rooms to try on clothes and find your right size? And feeling like you’re a different size at different stores? 

Well, there’s a new solution for that. 

A start-up that has developed 3D technology to scan your body in under a minute and tell you what size you are for different clothes at different retailers has teamed with one of the biggest U.S. mall owners to start opening kiosks at malls across the country. 

Fit:Match is rolling out this fall a handful of spaces with Brookfield, which owns malls such as Brookfield Place in downtown New York and Fashion Show in Las Vegas, the companies announced Tuesday. The first open at Oakbrook Center in Chicago in mid-August, followed by Glendale Galleria in Los Angels and Stonebriar Centre in Dallas in mid-September. 

Retailers have been considering virtual fitting rooms for many years. Several start-ups such as Israeli-based Sizer and the body data platform 3DLOOK tout the ability to scan bodies to help with sizing in retail. None of these concepts has been able to grow at scale yet, but the pandemic could give them a boost.

People by and large are not comfortable going back into fitting rooms. One recent survey found about 49% of millennial consumers said they would not feel safe trying on clothes in dressing rooms, even after the pandemic subsides. And that percentage was much higher for baby boomers, at 71%. 

Overall, according to the poll conducted by retail predictive analytics company First Insight, 65% of women said they would not feel safe trying on clothes in dressing rooms. Fifty-four percent of men said the same. 

“The coronavirus has moved this industry away from high touch to low touch,” First Insight Chief Executive Greg Petro said. 

Read the Full Article at CNBC

retail technologies  retail technology  baby boomers  millennials  in-store shopping  Coronavirus  COVID-19  Women  Consumer Survey  Safety  fitting room