Many SMEs in India, US, UK have signed long-term contracts with us
Mirrorsize is a US-based start-up that provides artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled body scanning solutions through a device-agnostic app to solve issues of fitting and sizing in fashion. It delivers an instant 3D body scan with precise body measurements on your smartphone or tablet screen in just a few seconds. Arup Chakraborty, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, discusses the market for 3D body scanning in India, the latest in 3D body measurement and the future projects at the company.
How would you describe the market for 3D body scanning globally? What is the annual growth rate?
The market for 3D body scanning, though it started a while back, has gained significant momentum in fashion and apparel vertical. Accuracy and scalability are the keys that will determine the adoption of technology with brands to leverage 3D body scanning to reach a global audience in online markets.
As commerce is moving online and customers demand better look and fit from brands, 3D body scanning technology can play a pivotal role in delivering best-fitting clothes to consumers globally. The application is just not limited to traditional custom tailoring and retail stores, but to online retailers and marketplaces.
Virtual fitting room market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.7 per cent from 2018 to 2026 with development and adoption of 3D body scanning.
How does Mirrorsize work with fashion retailers?
We provide 'license to use' to retailers and seamlessly integrate our solutions with their web and app platforms. Our revenue model is SaaS-based and we charge SMEs on 'pay per click' basis and enterprise customers are on value-based pricing model.
The last one year has seen a rash of apps and software in the virtual fitting space. What is your USP?
You are right. The problem is well known and the industry is desperately looking for a sizing solution that is user friendly and doesn't need much capital to implement. However, there are many technological barriers to building the right solution. We spent over two years in research and development (R&D) and after we filed our patent in the last week of December 2018, we started our GTM journey.
Mirrorsize is also background agnostic, i.e., works with cluttered and uncluttered background and has several unique and distinct features that will establish our market leadership position in the immediate future. One of our secret sauce is that we create a 3D model of the object on the run and then we deform the mesh to get precise body measurements.
What are the key growth drivers of the market?
Demand for convenience in shopping by consumers and AI-enabled body measurement by harnessing the power of computer vision, deep learning is the perfect way forward. Mirrorsize body measurement solution is device-agnostic and works on any mobile and laptop (having 2-megapixel camera) and is uniquely positioned to help scale a brand's online footprints and to help their customers shop with confidence. Internet penetration across geographies, access to data on mobile and affordability of hand-held devices with monocular camera will drive the global adoption of Mirrorsize solution.
Which are your major markets? Are there any major clients from India?
Mirrorsize AI-enabled 3D body measurement solution has global application and in various industry verticals, such as fashion and apparel, fitness, healthcare and Institutions where uniform is mandatory.
Our immediate focus is on fashion and apparel vertical to solve the major supply chain inefficiency and to bring in a meaningful change to bring efficiency of scale to brands and to enrich their customers' shopping experience.
The biggest e-commerce retailer in India has already signed up with us. Another big brand with presence in over 50 countries is going live in a month. Some major brands in India plan to go live in the next one to three months. Also, many small and medium enterprises (SMEs)in India (Samshek and Corpqlo), the United States (Ripleyshirts, Blaze-in and Mycustomtailor) and the United Kingdom have signed long-term contracts with us and some have already integrated our MS GetMeasured and MS Size2Fit solutions on their Web and app platforms.
How do you keep a track of the latest trends in the fashion market?
Fashion market is now online but still having to gain a lot of attention from masses, where people will be using apps and websites to purchase apparel instead of visiting the retail or brand stores which saves them a lot of time and effort.
Fashion market globally is evolving as customers are always demanding better look and fit and brands are competing to deliver the best-fit cloth to improve their customer loyalty index. Innovation in technology will play a key role to improve return on investment (RoI) and to optimise the supply chain inefficiencies.
We constantly engage with our customers and users to ensure that we deliver the best results and our accuracy in body measurement helps both consumers and brands to improve ROI and gain deeper penetration in the market. We also intend to participate in a few trade shows going forward to demonstrate the mettle of our solution.
Besides increasing revenues for online retailers and minimising returns, what else will the technology provide?
Bespoke Merchants: Bespoke merchants can now scale their business using Mirrorsize to reach global audiences. Customers no longer require spending time and money to travel, all they need is to download Mirrorsize mobile app to get their body measurements and send it to any brand to fulfil.
Merchants selling ready-to-wear apparel: With MS Size2Fit, brands will not only be able to cut online returns and rejections, which predominantly occur due to ill size, but will also enrich their customer's online shopping experience. Customers can now shop with confidence to pick the right size and avoid going through the hassles of returns. This will improve the customer loyalty index and will also help brands to reduce the churn percentage.
Where is the potential (in terms of geographies and application) for such technology growing? What is the size of the brands, companies and retailers using your solutions?
Our solution, with precise accuracy gives us a distinct advantage over our competitors. There is a lot of potential as this serves the best in body measurements with a lot of accuracy saving time and effort standardising the measurement process.
We started our Go To Market (GTM) journey in the first quarter of 2019 and already have signed up contracts with many national and international brands. Further, many brands are in testing phase and we are so confident on our accuracy, that we feel more global brands will soon integrate our solution.
How does your body-scanning app work? Is it easy to integrate the technology into a retailer's existing system? Can it be used in stores too?
We just capture two images of the person, front pose and side pose. The results are displayed in seconds. The integration is seamless on retailer's web and app platforms with our application program interface (API) and software development kits (SDK).
Yes, it can be used in stores as well. With MS GetMeasured, retailers are not required to travel to the person to get his body measurements. Anybody stepping into a store can get his precise body measurements in seconds. With MS Size2Fit, customers can find their right size by brand and by apparel in seconds, and avoid picking up the wrong size and then go through the hassle of returning.
What were the last two years like and what is the target set two fiscal years and the target set for next two.
We have been in the R&D mode for two years and expect to ramp up quickly. Our immediate target is to achieve $1million in monthly recurring revenue in the next 12 months and we are well on track.
Where do you plan to take AI from here, especially in the retail domain?
We are already using AI for recognising and processing body parameters to give you exact body measurements and recommendations. We are in research of another new technology called 'draping' to give customers a virtual try on of apparels on their 3D body mesh to enhance personalisation and to give real-time visualisation. Draping will be rolled out later this year. (HO)
How customisable is your virtual fitting app?
Both of our products can be deployed on web and mobile app platforms. The processing of input images is done on the cloud with our AI-enabled patent-pending proprietary algorithms developed by using advanced computer vision, deep learning, 3D and mesh processing.
Our products can be deployed on any mobile, tablet or laptop to get body measurements and to give precise size recommendation by brand and by apparel to customers shopping online. Brands are also planning to deploy our products in their stores to help customers pick the right size. All they need is to install a camera and a display screen. Once the camera captures the front and side image of a person, all our proprietary deep-learning algorithms that run on the cloud will display the results in seconds on the screen.
