Stage-Gate

Stage-Gate

Introduction

With online shopping increasing rapidly, having an online presence is a need for every company. However, the clothing industry faces issues with online shoppers since there are several customers who complain that the clothes do not fit them after they are delivered. The reason is the wrong measurement or wrong selection of clothes. In order to overcome this issue, Virtual Dressing Room has been developed that helps customers make purchases after scanning their bodies (Fan, 2004).

Value of VDR 1.0

Virtual Dressing Room 1.0 is an interactive software which customers can use to scan their bodies with a webcam or phone camera by standing at a certain distance. The software then measures the body and suggests clothing of appropriate size. All this is done by using a certain scale that can accurately determine the measurements (Baldwin & Achterberg, 2013). The result is that this product would enable consumers to make more purchases while sitting at home. Although they can still make purchases easily, VDR would enable them to select clothes that would not have to be returned.

Benefits of Product

This product has several benefits for both the consumers as well as the retailers. The main advantage includes the ease and confidence of making an online purchase resulting in increased revenues and reduced return of the products. The following are some of the benefits VDR has for the consumers as well as the retailers:

For Consumers

The benefit for consumers is that they will be more confident while purchasing clothing. With the help of this software they would be sure that the clothes that they purchase online would fit them. Therefore, there will be less return of clothes since most of them will fit perfectly (Earnshaw, 2002). VDR helped solve this problem as the only thing they have to do now is to scan themselves and select the clothes that best fits them. Thus, the hassle of returning clothes back is eliminated.

For Retailers

Online shopping has resulted in the increase in revenue for retailers but at the same time the issues have also begun to crop up. One of the main issues retailers are facing is that customers are returning clothes back because they did not fit. This resulted in the increase in cost of doing businesses since shipment costs had to be borne as well as cleaning the clothes so that they can be resold.The problem of clothing not fitting customers would be eliminated since there will be an accurate measurement of their body size. The profit of retailers would also increase because there will be fewer return of clothes and the number of buyers would also increase (Muttulingam, 2007).

Service Provided

VDR ensures a better way to shop online for clothing by maintaining the comfort of shopping from home while ensuring that the clothes would fit well. The previous issues of clothing not fitting are eliminated since the system provides an accurate measurement of the customer and then determines the clothes that would fit.

Insecurity of Buying Clothing Online

Many online shoppers face problems while shopping online for ...