Technology Impact on Apparel Retailing

Technology Impact on Apparel Retailing

Technology Impact on Apparel Retailing
Saranya D V
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Fashion Technology 
Bannari Amman Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu, India
Email: saranyadv@bitsathy.ac.in

 

Life is too short to wear boring clothes. The relationship between technology and fashion is scaling to new heights. Every apparel industry is accountable for designing and manufacturing new clothingwith new technologies to obtain hall mark in the minds of people. 

Technology – A vital part in Apparel Retailing: 
The essential part in the growth of apparel industries lies with the advancements in technology. Specialized machinery for various operations are used for large quantities of clothing production in shorter time. The way retailers do their business has transformed to a greater extent by internet and mobile technologies. The retailers have become more technology conscious in order to deal with the high competitive market. They adopt technology to sustain and catch the attention of customers at global level. 

Fig: Apparel retail store

Nothing is constant in fashion. Marketing strategy for the apparel retailing is changing day by day. The exceptionally competitive areas of apparel retailing are adopting technologies that facilitate the customers for easy product purchase. As a result of embracing technological advances, a stronger relationship is developing between consumers and designers. 

Let us now discover how technology is extending a platform to the apparel retailing: 

Analysis of trend forecast: 
In earlier days, group of people travel around the world to produce a report on trend forecast. It takes more than one month to process. With the technology advancement, the data is virtually fed to retailers and designers in a fraction of seconds. 

Garment Design and outfit construction: 
In connection with the latest trend, alterations can be made to the garments accordingly. Technology extends its support by using stored templates for style, color palettes and much more through digital libraries. This makes the design team feel comfort to see the changes where the information is stored as a whole in one place. 

Fast Fashion for everyone and everywhere: 
In the current fashion scenario, what is seen on the models or dummies in retail shops today will be in the hands of fashion lovers tomorrow. The social group between the upper and working classes is the middle class. These middle class are the customers for fast fashion purchase. With the Technology advances, retail business offers fast fashion at a cheaper rate. 

E-Commerce: 
With the high use of internet, accessing fashion is more feasible from all corners of the world. This internet act as a boon between customers and fashion retailers , were the customers gets their choice of fashion from online stores. 

Interaction between Fashion lovers and retailers through social media: 
The role of Social media for the fashion business is outstanding. Almost all brands have social Medias connected with the customers and they easily analyze the need and want of their customers. The customer opinion influencing design process is easy to analyze through social media. The opportunities for company’s brand awareness can be done through social media. Promotion is an important aspect for every apparel business in the competitive scenario. Apparel retailers adopt social Medias to get feedback about their products and to maintain customer relationship. 

Product visibility: 
The exact inventory can be tracked by the retailers with the help of technology and the materials on the shelf can be re -stocked. 

3D sensors: 
In order to introduce a feel of realistic fit before purchase, 3d sensors from body metrics technology is used to map the body’s measurements and shape by accessing body metrics through online. 

All together it can be said that use of technology on the apparel retailing is becoming a vital part day by day.