Addressing the Apparel Retail Reset through Dynamic Imaging

By: LiquidPixels | February 7, 2023 | 10 Min Read

The apparel industry is in a perfect storm.

The changing consumer buying habits pushes retailers to reinvent their strategies to survive and thrive. To top it all off, inflation is also at an all-time-high, which even puts pressure on big retailers like Target, Gap, and Walmart to come up with plans for more markdowns to make room for new merchandise.

Despite this, apparel sales are climbing. Why is this happening? It is because the apparel industry is facing a tremendous retail reset.

A change in consumer habits is driving the retail reset in the apparel industry due to the various factors the world has faced and is currently facing. For example, the pandemic has forced shoppers to shift their buying habits, which has continued in the post-pandemic environment. Right now, consumers are now looking for a better overall shopping experience, including a seamless experience between in-store and online shopping.

Inflation has also pushed people to look for ways to spend money wisely and save more. Still, apparel purchases have ramped up again as people return to working and socializing outside of their homes. Additionally, according to Alvarez and Marshal’s survey in 2022, 49% expect to have more money for themselves, which could translate to their changing spending habits. This also concurs that high-income earners are also pushing apparel sales up.

These changes brought about by the retail reset significantly impacts the apparel industry. In the face of this unprecedented challenge, apparel companies need to reset their strategies fast. Read on to know more about the retail reset and how dynamic imaging can help.

What is Taking Place in the Apparel Industry?

Right now, clothing sales are climbing. According to NPD, from January to May 2022, women’s dress sales grew by 42% year-on-year, and men’s sports coat sales rose by 32%. Overall, US clothing and clothing accessory sales rose by 124% in 2022 compared to 2020.

At the same time, demand for omnichannel experiences is increasing. The Next Wave of Retail Fulfillment study from Zebra Technologies reveals 67% of shoppers prefer a blend of online and brick-and-mortar experiences. Fifty percent of shoppers check for sales, promotions, and coupons online while in-store. Moreover, Deloitte reports a whopping 96% of shoppers expect a seamless experience across channels.

However, during the pandemic, businesses saw significant supply chain disruptions and order cancellations. According to Interline’s Fashion Reset Report 2022, during the period of lockdowns, mass production of clothes and quick sales failed. This has led clothing brands to either pass the stock on to retailers at a discount or resell it on second-hand platforms.

As the world slowly moves past the pandemic, customers continue to demand blended channels, or “phygital”—the merging of the physical and digital—experiences. But this new approach is also facing increasing challenges in terms of order fulfillment on separate means of purchase, whether in-store and online. In 2022, 68% of retail executives still agree that supply chain disruption can impact business growth, based on a report by Deloitte. Also, 20% of respondents in Alvarez and Marshal’s 2022 survey said the unpleasant shopping experience or poor service is a barrier to their spending.

How Apparel Brands Can Leverage the Retail Reset

The first step in resetting strategies for apparel retailers is to take a hard look at their customer base. Retailers need to ask these questions:

• Who are my customers?
• What do they want?
• How have their needs changed in recent months?

When they have concrete answers to these questions, they can fully strategize on what to do next.

They can also reinvent their product to gain more sales. Retailers can make existing products more appealing to customers. Remember, it is not just about selling clothes—it is about selling a lifestyle. A retailer’s goal should be creating an emotional connection with customers that goes beyond just the product itself. Apparel retailers should also have a system to ensure they are prepared to meet customers’ needs.

According to McKinsey, retailers can tap into the use of technologies to gain intelligence on what products can drive engagement and create personalized promotional pricing from this information. Retailers should also be prepared to meet the needs of consumers both in-store and online.

For example, retail brands H&M and Zara used their online channels as an expansion of their physical stores. This includes parallel pricing on online and offline stores, which assists in a seamless omnichannel experience for customers. Digital tools are helping apparel retailers adapt to consumers’ changing habits and ensuring that the apparel industry remains strong in the face of adversity.

How Technology Solves Current Retail Reset Challenges

The apparel industry is facing tough challenges, but there is still an opportunity for those who are willing to adapt their strategies. Available technologies are making retail processes more straightforward and faster while providing a more immersive experience for consumers. According to Zebra Technologies, digital transformation in retail is a “necessity.” It predicts that offering a seamless customer experience between online, brick-and-mortar, and a mobile ordering system, are two top trends that will emerge as part of the retail reset.

Technology also helps the customization of apparel products and provides visibility across the supply chain. The Fashion Reset Report 2022 by Interline says, “on-demand fashion occupies a small market niche consumed occasionally and typically only by wealthier fashion connoisseurs,” but recent technologies can help apparel companies communicate these orders across the supply chain. One of these technologies is 3D. Interline said 3D can help retailers with “early visualization, quick changes, and fit approval from the point of inception all the way to manufacturing.”

Adding Value to Customer Experience

On the customer side of things, “hyper-customization,” or the ability to change a product based on a buyer’s wants, will continue to be king. Giving customers this control helps bring them into a position of a design co-creator and also sole decision-maker deciding what to wear and how to wear it.

3D visualization enables customers to visualize their selection of the fit, style, fabric, and color of their purchase. This technique gives them assurance of a product’s realistic feel, digitally, before the order is placed. The right digital tools help empower smaller made-to-measure brands and factories that have the savoir-faire to keep up with the digital times.

Without a doubt, retailers are taking action. Interline said some retailers are taking the better route: accelerating investments in digital technologies that offer inventory visibility and state-of-the-art solutions that offer immersive online experiences. But this is only a tiny percentage of the industry because of “reluctance to change [and] high price points for developing it in-house.”

Similarly, Deloitte found that 80% of retail executives plan to make moderate-to-major investments in digital and supply chain. As consumer buying habits continue to shift, retailers must embrace new technologies to stay competitive. Dynamic imaging is one tool businesses can use to create an interactive shopping environment.

The Role of Dynamic Imaging in the Retail Reset

Dynamic imaging is today’s most crucial apparel industry trend. As the apparel industry deals with this period of retail reset, brands need tools that will allow them to respond to current concerns on supply chain and customer engagement. Here are four ways dynamic imaging can help retailers address the retail reset.

Effectively Utilize Company Data

Dynamic imaging can utilize an apparel business’s live product data and assist consumers in viewing several product variations on demand. Businesses can also create personalized promotional emails for their customer base. Dynamic imaging can also help apparel retailers guide customers through the entire creative process—from concept to implementation.

With dynamic imaging, companies gain access to real-time analytics and insights that allow them to gain a better understanding of their customer base, operations, and performance. It also helps them quickly identify trends in order to make more informed decisions. By harnessing dynamic imaging capabilities, companies can ensure they are leveraging their data in the most effective way possible.

Automate Repetitive Tasks

This technology helps reduce time-to-market and improve workflow, thus enabling  retailers to traverse the retail reset with less difficulty. Dynamic imaging lets retailers instantly scale, resize, format, and compress images, helping them quickly create their catalog based on inventory. It can also present images in varying sizes and through different viewports automatically.

Moreover, dynamic imaging can save businesses time and improve their accuracy. By utilizing computer vision technologies, dynamic imaging solutions can identify objects, detect anomalies, and classify different kinds of content.

For example, an automated system can be used to detect changes in product labels or check for missing components on a production line. AI-enabled dynamic imaging solutions can also compare images to provide automated inspections and detect defects in clothing or other manufactured products.

Boost Customer Engagement and Drive Sales

Through dynamic imaging, retailers can create a compelling product line. The revolutionary way of processing and delivering images via the web enables high-performance, interactive online visual merchandising. It allows retailers to change the appearance of an item of clothing on a digital screen in real-time. Customers can see how an item of clothing would look on them, and lets them select different colors and styles to suit their preferences.

For example, if a customer wants to try on a shirt but is unsure what color works well for them, store employees can use dynamic imaging tools to show them all available colors. This not only makes it easier for the customer to find what they are looking for, but it also helps them make decisions faster.

By providing a more realistic view of the product, customers are more likely to make a purchase online. With dynamic product viewers, customers are able to see and try on the product as if they were in a physical store.

Assist with Retailers’ Omnichannel Strategy

Dynamic imaging is applicable everywhere—on websites, emails, computers, smartphones, tablets, billboards, and in-store displays—the use cases are endless.

Companies looking to create a comprehensive omnichannel experience need dynamic imaging. It helps ensure that shoppers have consistent visual information regardless of where they are shopping. Businesses can showcase their products in a variety of ways, including multiple angles, detailed images to zoom into, and even video. This enables shoppers to make informed decisions about what they are buying by providing them with more information than ever before.

The Retail Reset Strategy Through LiquidPixels

The retail reset is a time of change, which is challenging for many retailers. Apparel companies, for one, have to quickly respond to industry concerns, like supply chain gaps, and quickly adapt to increasing trends like omnichannel approaches. To add to the pressure, retailers must adjust to these changes quickly to remain competitive.

LiquidPixels visualization platform helps apparel retailers respond to these needs as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The platform provides the tools to help enhance product creation and visualization while reducing production costs. These visualization tools provide value to all aspects of an enterprise including product lifecycle management, CRM, enterprise resource planning, supply chain, field services, and more.

LiquiFire OS is a powerful, scalable, and secure visualization platform that seamlessly integrates with existing infrastructures and automates workflows. It includes:

• Real Time Inbox™ with LiquiFire® OS: Use data provided by your customers to tailor images to each recipient of your email campaigns. Visualize low inventory levels or include product images from an abandoned shopping cart. Real Time Inbox provides the tools to generate individually targeted images on demand rather than manually create static content in an image editing environment. This saves your marketing team time while improving the quality of your emails.
• LiquiFire® Object Detect™ and LiquiFire Edge Detect™: Auto-crop images to any shape and instantly create auto-masks to discover, discern, and isolate objects in images. This adds flexibility and automation to previously manual workflows.
• Assets from Anywhere™: Control how your business uses assets and where assets are stored. Any type of asset (image, font, data) in any file format is supported and Assets from Anywhere integrates with any content management system.

To help your business with immediately addressing the challenges of apparel retail reset with dynamic imaging, speak with a member of our sales team.