British start-up, be Retail Social,a virtual fitting room and virtual try on platformfocused onfashion and sportswear brands, today announces that it has launched with its first customer, fashion retailer, Get Cutie. Based in Brighton,Get Cutie sells vintage inspired, handmade garments and is the first fashion retailer to use be Retail Social’s platform extension and accelerator services.
Get Cutie started with beDynamic,one of the first virtual fitting room services from be Retail Social, that provides self-moving, dynamically changing models, garmentsand fabrics to stimulate customer engagement. beDynamic allows customers to consider more product variations and ranges, on different model sizes and skin tones, offering more likelihood of conversion than traditional photos.
beDynamic is the entry-level platform accelerator from the virtual try on innovator. In addition to its launch customer,be Retail Social has been working over the past 2 yearswith otherinternational fashion and sportswear brands.During this time andfollowing an oversubscribedfunding round, it hassystematicallydeveloped and continually improved itsmodularplatform with input,critique and approvals from multiple retailers.
Simon Iddon, Founder and CEO of be Retail Social said:
“Working with Get Cutie and other global fashion and sportswear retailers was essential to gain credibility and authority. We listened and pressure testedour understandingagainsteach company’schallenges and priorities, those generally faced by the sector,and where we identifiedmissed benefit opportunitiesforboth businesses and customers. We shared our roadmap and plans which aligned with their own focus areasand, in addition, we hadexciting discussions on whatwe wouldbe deliveringto help accelerate the transitionand continued evolution of a more engaging customer journey. Theinvaluable feedback and learningshelped us to refine further developmentof our platform with confidence. Alongside Get Cutie, we are in discussions with other leading fashion and sportswear brands about trialing a fuller basket ofbe Retail Socialaccelerator extensions.
While we kept it simple to begin with for Get Cutie, we are already seeing expected benefits and are now working through the next phase of their journey. This will introduce beInteractive where customers can intuitively swipe through different clothing styles, colours and fabrics on their moving models, seeing them change instantly on their mobile or desktop, and returning to the user more choice and control. Beyond that we also look forward to trailing bePersonalized, beInfluenced and beThere as some of the other accelerator plug-in services we have developed alongside retailers and brands. We are looking forward to the continuing evolution of our partnership.”
Izzy England, Owner Get Cutiesaid:
“We are excited to be the first business to ‘be’ Retail Social. We have started by using our best-selling dress, The Belle, and replacing our website photos with the new beDynamic assets. We love our photos, but they do not get across our extensive range. To do more business through our website we need to display the variety of styles and fabrics in a more effective way. be Retail Social started by adding dynamic content of 6 different models, in 3 different skin tones, in 3 different dress sizes and 6 different fabrics. It is amazing! The moving images are much more engaging, and our customers can quickly see that we do a dress to exactly suit them, no matter their size and shape. This changes everything for us!”
Among the many challenges which Simon and his team have had to overcome during the development phase was the realism required in both the garmentsand models to allow for effective buying decisions, also the associated process and buy-in from the brands’ teams. It is an area where they have achieved notable success.
Georgina Jaggs, Office Manager, Get Cutie commented:
“The digital representation of the dress is as good as a photograph, it has the correct sizing, the correct fabric pattern size and weave and shows realistic movement. The team love it too as it helps show off more of the great work that we hand make in our studio!”
