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If you’re a fashion brand or online retailer selling apparel and footwear, you already know the challenge of getting sizing right online. Uncertain customers dropping off your website and high returns reflect the gap between your site’s information and their desire to buy clothes. In fact, global return rates for apparel average 26%, and over 50% of those returns are due to size and fit discrepancies.
It’s therefore no surprise that more and more brands are turning to virtual fitting rooms as a way to solve this challenge.
But what exactly is a virtual fitting room?
Put simply, a virtual fitting room is a digital tool that helps online shoppers figure out what size to buy. The idea is to bring the digital experience closer to in-store, allowing customers to gain confidence despite not actually trying on the apparel or footwear.
These solutions aim to answer the ever-pressing question - “will this fit me?”
You’ve probably come across different phrases like virtual fitting, digital fitting, or size recommendation used interchangeably. Here’s how to make sense of them:
- Virtual/Digital Fitting Solution: an umbrella term for any technology that helps customers assess the fit of a product online.
- Virtual Try-On: technology that uses visual representation of apparel on a real or simulated body.
- 3D or AR Try-On: allowing shoppers to “see” items on their real body using cameras or augmented reality (AR). This focuses more on what it looks like than an actual size recommendation.
- Size Recommendation Tool: technology that uses your item data with user-inputted data to recommend the right size to shoppers
Why Fashion Brands should use Virtual Fitting Rooms in 2025:
Digital fitting solutions are becoming more and more of a necessity rather than a “nice-to-have” for e-commerce fashion.
- Digital-native shoppers
Shoppers now expect even more convenience and personalisation before buying - especially younger generations, e.g. gen z, who are digitally-savvy, less tolerant to friction and enjoy tech enhanced experiences across other platforms such as social media.
- AI is making it scalable
Recent advances in AI and machine learning have made virtual fitting tools more accurate, affordable and allow them to do a lot more than even a year ago.
- Shift to an omni-channel strategy
All fashion players, whether high-end luxury or high volume sportswear, have to rely on all channels in the current climate. Digital channels should not be seen as a lower priority off-shoot, but should mimic the high value touch-points often seen in-store.
- Sustainability pressures
While supply chains make up the largest part of sustainability efforts within brands, we now have a way to reduce returns via comparatively minimal effort. This adds an additional, lower friction lever to your climate goals.
Problems Virtual Fitting Solutions will tackle
Put simply: when shoppers aren’t sure about whether your clothes will fit them, they will just not buy an item or assume they can rely on return policies to pick up the slack.
If your return policies aren’t very generous, and product sizing incredibly clear; that’s where your potential buyer’s journey stops.
- Short-term benefits for your business:
- Reduces Return Rates: the fewer sizing errors made at checkout, the fewer items are returned to you. Under Armour, for example, implemented Virtusize and saw a 27% decrease in customer return rates YoY due to size related issues, also impacting their sustainability goals.
- Increases Conversion Rates: removing the hesitation at the point of purchase helps more customers to follow through. Asics found that shoppers using Virtusize on their e-commerce site were 10.5x more likely to purchase an item compared to non-users of Virtusize.
- Increases Average Order Value: when customers feel sure about their fit, they’re more likely to add additional items to their cart without fear of sizing errors, and return for more.
- Longer-term benefits for your business:
- Improved user experience and brand loyalty
A smoother, friction-less path to purchase leads to higher shopper satisfaction, who are more likely to come back - boosting lifetime value (LTV) and increasing customer retention.
- Add a new data category to your decisions
Virtual fitting tools provide a range of additional data points about your customers and their bodies, allowing you to make better informed decisions regarding your brand and offering.
How to select the right solution for your business
Not all virtual fitting tools are built or operate in the same way. The right solution for your brand and e-commerce platform depends on what you’re trying to achieve, how much flexibility you need, and the size and complexity of your operation. Here’s how to compare fitting solutions:
- Define your goals
- Pinpoint the main metric you’re trying to improve: are you trying to reduce returns, increase conversions, improve the user experience or retain customers?
- Identify where your e-commerce site is lacking: issue with the UX flow, lack of interpretable sizing information, or too many selection choices impacting your shoppers’ decision-making?
- Define how much fixing this is worth to you, both financially and time spent on it.
- What is realistic for your site
Not every fit solution suits every business. Smaller or mid-sized brands may find some tools too expensive and complex due to high fixed fees and enterprise setups. A low-volume, high quality item brand might emphasize customisation or branding to keep with the ‘premium-feel’, while identifying a variable pricing plan based on usage.
The ease of integration into your current systems should also be considered, including how much manual vs. automated input is required. Main questions to ask:
- Is the pricing model usage-based, fixed-fee, or composite?
- Are there setup costs?
- Does the pricing scale fairly with your forecasted business growth?
- Integration requirements for implementation?
- Do I have the measurement data to support a tool like this?
- Can I track the right metrics to measure impact?
- Prioritise user experience
We should give your customers confidence - not leave them feeling unsure or frustrated. Too often, tools end up being too complicated, too slow, or just don’t fit well with the shopping experience. Adding additional friction and too many clicks to a sensitive part of the shopping journey can lead to hesitation or even drop-off. Go for a solution that:
- Keeps the process simple and straightforward, minimizing clicks
- Integrates seamlessly into product pages - no pop-ups or redirects
- Adapts to your brand’s design for a consistent user experience
"In online shopping, confidence is everything - especially when it comes to choosing the right size. If the experience feels clunky, long or confusing, shoppers can lose trust fast.
- Emory Takagi - Head of Design at Virtusize
- Is the solution leveraging data modelling or just an AI gimmick?
Some solutions rely on generic size charts or superficial “AI” labels that don’t actually improve accuracy.
When evaluating solutions, ask yourself: is the size recommendation based on true data modelling or just basic logic and AI marketing slogans?
“Anyone can throw the word ‘AI’ on a product. What matters is whether the system actually understands clothing and bodies in context. Real impact comes from bespoke models built on real data, not shortcuts. With our team of data and AI experts we tune and optimise our models for each individual clothing brand and their users.”
- Arron Ritchie - Head of Data Science at Virtusize
Choosing a virtual fitting tool is more than a feature comparison, it’s about aligning your brand’s growth strategy, technical needs, and customer experience values, whilst keeping in mind the future of fashion and fitting solutions.
We’d be happy to show you how this works? Schedule a demo
What to keep in mind for the future?
- AI-powered fit is raising the bar
As machine learning models continue to improve, they are able to deliver more accurate, more personalised size recommendations with less data inputs. At Virtusize, for example, we are seeing immense accuracy lifts while only requiring three simple inputs - height, weight, and age - to deliver a size recommendation.
- Sizing data will be crucial to brand strategy & operations
Brands are now using virtual fitting solutions not only to help their customers, but to help guide internal decision-making. Body data is an often missing puzzle piece to:
- Build more complete customer profiles by layering body type and fit preferences on top of location, gender, and purchase behaviour
- Optimise production planning to accurately forecast and ideate on new product lines.
- Blending of digital and real life
AI assistants will soon allow you to shop from just chat or speech. TikTok and other social media are closing the gap between users and shopping carts, and personalisation will be expected on all of them. Fit/sizing data allowing those users to find/match your products, will be paramount to unlocking your future revenue streams.
The Time to Tackle Fit is Now
Sizing and fit continue to be a major friction point in fashion e-commerce, directly contributing to lost sales, high return rates, and poor customer satisfaction. Virtual fitting solutions offer a clear path forward - increasing digital conversion, reducing returns while supporting sustainability goals.
The technology is no longer emerging - it’s here and ready to deliver results. With AI-powered and data modelling tools now offering accurate recommendations with minimal user inputs, there’s never been a better time to explore what’s possible. But success for you depends on finding a solution that truly fits your brand and needs - your goals, your available resources, and most importantly your customers.
If you’re serious about solving the fit problem, now is the time to take action. Start testing a few different tools, see what works for your customer journey and e-commerce site, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you want to learn more - we’re here to help.
See how brands like Under Armour and Asics use Virtusize to reduce returns by up to 27% and increase conversion rates by 10x.
Explore Our Business Cases:
If you’re a fashion brand or online retailer selling apparel and footwear, you already know the challenge of getting sizing right online. Uncertain customers dropping off your website and high returns reflect the gap between your site’s information and their desire to buy clothes. In fact, global return rates for apparel average 26%, and over 50% of those returns are due to size and fit discrepancies.
It’s therefore no surprise that more and more brands are turning to virtual fitting rooms as a way to solve this challenge.
But what exactly is a virtual fitting room?
Put simply, a virtual fitting room is a digital tool that helps online shoppers figure out what size to buy. The idea is to bring the digital experience closer to in-store, allowing customers to gain confidence despite not actually trying on the apparel or footwear.
These solutions aim to answer the ever-pressing question - “will this fit me?”
You’ve probably come across different phrases like virtual fitting, digital fitting, or size recommendation used interchangeably. Here’s how to make sense of them:
- Virtual/Digital Fitting Solution: an umbrella term for any technology that helps customers assess the fit of a product online.
- Virtual Try-On: technology that uses visual representation of apparel on a real or simulated body.
- 3D or AR Try-On: allowing shoppers to “see” items on their real body using cameras or augmented reality (AR). This focuses more on what it looks like than an actual size recommendation.
- Size Recommendation Tool: technology that uses your item data with user-inputted data to recommend the right size to shoppers
Why Fashion Brands should use Virtual Fitting Rooms in 2025:
Digital fitting solutions are becoming more and more of a necessity rather than a “nice-to-have” for e-commerce fashion.
- Digital-native shoppers
Shoppers now expect even more convenience and personalisation before buying - especially younger generations, e.g. gen z, who are digitally-savvy, less tolerant to friction and enjoy tech enhanced experiences across other platforms such as social media.
- AI is making it scalable
Recent advances in AI and machine learning have made virtual fitting tools more accurate, affordable and allow them to do a lot more than even a year ago.
- Shift to an omni-channel strategy
All fashion players, whether high-end luxury or high volume sportswear, have to rely on all channels in the current climate. Digital channels should not be seen as a lower priority off-shoot, but should mimic the high value touch-points often seen in-store.
- Sustainability pressures
While supply chains make up the largest part of sustainability efforts within brands, we now have a way to reduce returns via comparatively minimal effort. This adds an additional, lower friction lever to your climate goals.
Problems Virtual Fitting Solutions will tackle
Put simply: when shoppers aren’t sure about whether your clothes will fit them, they will just not buy an item or assume they can rely on return policies to pick up the slack.
If your return policies aren’t very generous, and product sizing incredibly clear; that’s where your potential buyer’s journey stops.
- Short-term benefits for your business:
- Reduces Return Rates: the fewer sizing errors made at checkout, the fewer items are returned to you. Under Armour, for example, implemented Virtusize and saw a 27% decrease in customer return rates YoY due to size related issues, also impacting their sustainability goals.
- Increases Conversion Rates: removing the hesitation at the point of purchase helps more customers to follow through. Asics found that shoppers using Virtusize on their e-commerce site were 10.5x more likely to purchase an item compared to non-users of Virtusize.
- Increases Average Order Value: when customers feel sure about their fit, they’re more likely to add additional items to their cart without fear of sizing errors, and return for more.
- Longer-term benefits for your business:
- Improved user experience and brand loyalty
A smoother, friction-less path to purchase leads to higher shopper satisfaction, who are more likely to come back - boosting lifetime value (LTV) and increasing customer retention.
- Add a new data category to your decisions
Virtual fitting tools provide a range of additional data points about your customers and their bodies, allowing you to make better informed decisions regarding your brand and offering.
How to select the right solution for your business
Not all virtual fitting tools are built or operate in the same way. The right solution for your brand and e-commerce platform depends on what you’re trying to achieve, how much flexibility you need, and the size and complexity of your operation. Here’s how to compare fitting solutions:
- Define your goals
- Pinpoint the main metric you’re trying to improve: are you trying to reduce returns, increase conversions, improve the user experience or retain customers?
- Identify where your e-commerce site is lacking: issue with the UX flow, lack of interpretable sizing information, or too many selection choices impacting your shoppers’ decision-making?
- Define how much fixing this is worth to you, both financially and time spent on it.
- What is realistic for your site
Not every fit solution suits every business. Smaller or mid-sized brands may find some tools too expensive and complex due to high fixed fees and enterprise setups. A low-volume, high quality item brand might emphasize customisation or branding to keep with the ‘premium-feel’, while identifying a variable pricing plan based on usage.
The ease of integration into your current systems should also be considered, including how much manual vs. automated input is required. Main questions to ask:
- Is the pricing model usage-based, fixed-fee, or composite?
- Are there setup costs?
- Does the pricing scale fairly with your forecasted business growth?
- Integration requirements for implementation?
- Do I have the measurement data to support a tool like this?
- Can I track the right metrics to measure impact?
- Prioritise user experience
We should give your customers confidence - not leave them feeling unsure or frustrated. Too often, tools end up being too complicated, too slow, or just don’t fit well with the shopping experience. Adding additional friction and too many clicks to a sensitive part of the shopping journey can lead to hesitation or even drop-off. Go for a solution that:
- Keeps the process simple and straightforward, minimizing clicks
- Integrates seamlessly into product pages - no pop-ups or redirects
- Adapts to your brand’s design for a consistent user experience
"In online shopping, confidence is everything - especially when it comes to choosing the right size. If the experience feels clunky, long or confusing, shoppers can lose trust fast.
- Emory Takagi - Head of Design at Virtusize
- Is the solution leveraging data modelling or just an AI gimmick?
Some solutions rely on generic size charts or superficial “AI” labels that don’t actually improve accuracy.
When evaluating solutions, ask yourself: is the size recommendation based on true data modelling or just basic logic and AI marketing slogans?
“Anyone can throw the word ‘AI’ on a product. What matters is whether the system actually understands clothing and bodies in context. Real impact comes from bespoke models built on real data, not shortcuts. With our team of data and AI experts we tune and optimise our models for each individual clothing brand and their users.”
- Arron Ritchie - Head of Data Science at Virtusize
Choosing a virtual fitting tool is more than a feature comparison, it’s about aligning your brand’s growth strategy, technical needs, and customer experience values, whilst keeping in mind the future of fashion and fitting solutions.
We’d be happy to show you how this works? Schedule a demo
What to keep in mind for the future?
- AI-powered fit is raising the bar
As machine learning models continue to improve, they are able to deliver more accurate, more personalised size recommendations with less data inputs. At Virtusize, for example, we are seeing immense accuracy lifts while only requiring three simple inputs - height, weight, and age - to deliver a size recommendation.
- Sizing data will be crucial to brand strategy & operations
Brands are now using virtual fitting solutions not only to help their customers, but to help guide internal decision-making. Body data is an often missing puzzle piece to:
- Build more complete customer profiles by layering body type and fit preferences on top of location, gender, and purchase behaviour
- Optimise production planning to accurately forecast and ideate on new product lines.
- Blending of digital and real life
AI assistants will soon allow you to shop from just chat or speech. TikTok and other social media are closing the gap between users and shopping carts, and personalisation will be expected on all of them. Fit/sizing data allowing those users to find/match your products, will be paramount to unlocking your future revenue streams.
The Time to Tackle Fit is Now
Sizing and fit continue to be a major friction point in fashion e-commerce, directly contributing to lost sales, high return rates, and poor customer satisfaction. Virtual fitting solutions offer a clear path forward - increasing digital conversion, reducing returns while supporting sustainability goals.
The technology is no longer emerging - it’s here and ready to deliver results. With AI-powered and data modelling tools now offering accurate recommendations with minimal user inputs, there’s never been a better time to explore what’s possible. But success for you depends on finding a solution that truly fits your brand and needs - your goals, your available resources, and most importantly your customers.
If you’re serious about solving the fit problem, now is the time to take action. Start testing a few different tools, see what works for your customer journey and e-commerce site, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you want to learn more - we’re here to help.
See how brands like Under Armour and Asics use Virtusize to reduce returns by up to 27% and increase conversion rates by 10x.
Explore Our Business Cases:
If you’re a fashion brand or online retailer selling apparel and footwear, you already know the challenge of getting sizing right online. Uncertain customers dropping off your website and high returns reflect the gap between your site’s information and their desire to buy clothes. In fact, global return rates for apparel average 26%, and over 50% of those returns are due to size and fit discrepancies.
It’s therefore no surprise that more and more brands are turning to virtual fitting rooms as a way to solve this challenge.
But what exactly is a virtual fitting room?
Put simply, a virtual fitting room is a digital tool that helps online shoppers figure out what size to buy. The idea is to bring the digital experience closer to in-store, allowing customers to gain confidence despite not actually trying on the apparel or footwear.
These solutions aim to answer the ever-pressing question - “will this fit me?”
You’ve probably come across different phrases like virtual fitting, digital fitting, or size recommendation used interchangeably. Here’s how to make sense of them:
- Virtual/Digital Fitting Solution: an umbrella term for any technology that helps customers assess the fit of a product online.
- Virtual Try-On: technology that uses visual representation of apparel on a real or simulated body.
- 3D or AR Try-On: allowing shoppers to “see” items on their real body using cameras or augmented reality (AR). This focuses more on what it looks like than an actual size recommendation.
- Size Recommendation Tool: technology that uses your item data with user-inputted data to recommend the right size to shoppers
Why Fashion Brands should use Virtual Fitting Rooms in 2025:
Digital fitting solutions are becoming more and more of a necessity rather than a “nice-to-have” for e-commerce fashion.
- Digital-native shoppers
Shoppers now expect even more convenience and personalisation before buying - especially younger generations, e.g. gen z, who are digitally-savvy, less tolerant to friction and enjoy tech enhanced experiences across other platforms such as social media.
- AI is making it scalable
Recent advances in AI and machine learning have made virtual fitting tools more accurate, affordable and allow them to do a lot more than even a year ago.
- Shift to an omni-channel strategy
All fashion players, whether high-end luxury or high volume sportswear, have to rely on all channels in the current climate. Digital channels should not be seen as a lower priority off-shoot, but should mimic the high value touch-points often seen in-store.
- Sustainability pressures
While supply chains make up the largest part of sustainability efforts within brands, we now have a way to reduce returns via comparatively minimal effort. This adds an additional, lower friction lever to your climate goals.
Problems Virtual Fitting Solutions will tackle
Put simply: when shoppers aren’t sure about whether your clothes will fit them, they will just not buy an item or assume they can rely on return policies to pick up the slack.
If your return policies aren’t very generous, and product sizing incredibly clear; that’s where your potential buyer’s journey stops.
- Short-term benefits for your business:
- Reduces Return Rates: the fewer sizing errors made at checkout, the fewer items are returned to you. Under Armour, for example, implemented Virtusize and saw a 27% decrease in customer return rates YoY due to size related issues, also impacting their sustainability goals.
- Increases Conversion Rates: removing the hesitation at the point of purchase helps more customers to follow through. Asics found that shoppers using Virtusize on their e-commerce site were 10.5x more likely to purchase an item compared to non-users of Virtusize.
- Increases Average Order Value: when customers feel sure about their fit, they’re more likely to add additional items to their cart without fear of sizing errors, and return for more.
- Longer-term benefits for your business:
- Improved user experience and brand loyalty
A smoother, friction-less path to purchase leads to higher shopper satisfaction, who are more likely to come back - boosting lifetime value (LTV) and increasing customer retention.
- Add a new data category to your decisions
Virtual fitting tools provide a range of additional data points about your customers and their bodies, allowing you to make better informed decisions regarding your brand and offering.
How to select the right solution for your business
Not all virtual fitting tools are built or operate in the same way. The right solution for your brand and e-commerce platform depends on what you’re trying to achieve, how much flexibility you need, and the size and complexity of your operation. Here’s how to compare fitting solutions:
- Define your goals
- Pinpoint the main metric you’re trying to improve: are you trying to reduce returns, increase conversions, improve the user experience or retain customers?
- Identify where your e-commerce site is lacking: issue with the UX flow, lack of interpretable sizing information, or too many selection choices impacting your shoppers’ decision-making?
- Define how much fixing this is worth to you, both financially and time spent on it.
- What is realistic for your site
Not every fit solution suits every business. Smaller or mid-sized brands may find some tools too expensive and complex due to high fixed fees and enterprise setups. A low-volume, high quality item brand might emphasize customisation or branding to keep with the ‘premium-feel’, while identifying a variable pricing plan based on usage.
The ease of integration into your current systems should also be considered, including how much manual vs. automated input is required. Main questions to ask:
- Is the pricing model usage-based, fixed-fee, or composite?
- Are there setup costs?
- Does the pricing scale fairly with your forecasted business growth?
- Integration requirements for implementation?
- Do I have the measurement data to support a tool like this?
- Can I track the right metrics to measure impact?
- Prioritise user experience
We should give your customers confidence - not leave them feeling unsure or frustrated. Too often, tools end up being too complicated, too slow, or just don’t fit well with the shopping experience. Adding additional friction and too many clicks to a sensitive part of the shopping journey can lead to hesitation or even drop-off. Go for a solution that:
- Keeps the process simple and straightforward, minimizing clicks
- Integrates seamlessly into product pages - no pop-ups or redirects
- Adapts to your brand’s design for a consistent user experience
"In online shopping, confidence is everything - especially when it comes to choosing the right size. If the experience feels clunky, long or confusing, shoppers can lose trust fast.
- Emory Takagi - Head of Design at Virtusize
- Is the solution leveraging data modelling or just an AI gimmick?
Some solutions rely on generic size charts or superficial “AI” labels that don’t actually improve accuracy.
When evaluating solutions, ask yourself: is the size recommendation based on true data modelling or just basic logic and AI marketing slogans?
“Anyone can throw the word ‘AI’ on a product. What matters is whether the system actually understands clothing and bodies in context. Real impact comes from bespoke models built on real data, not shortcuts. With our team of data and AI experts we tune and optimise our models for each individual clothing brand and their users.”
- Arron Ritchie - Head of Data Science at Virtusize
Choosing a virtual fitting tool is more than a feature comparison, it’s about aligning your brand’s growth strategy, technical needs, and customer experience values, whilst keeping in mind the future of fashion and fitting solutions.
We’d be happy to show you how this works? Schedule a demo
What to keep in mind for the future?
- AI-powered fit is raising the bar
As machine learning models continue to improve, they are able to deliver more accurate, more personalised size recommendations with less data inputs. At Virtusize, for example, we are seeing immense accuracy lifts while only requiring three simple inputs - height, weight, and age - to deliver a size recommendation.
- Sizing data will be crucial to brand strategy & operations
Brands are now using virtual fitting solutions not only to help their customers, but to help guide internal decision-making. Body data is an often missing puzzle piece to:
- Build more complete customer profiles by layering body type and fit preferences on top of location, gender, and purchase behaviour
- Optimise production planning to accurately forecast and ideate on new product lines.
- Blending of digital and real life
AI assistants will soon allow you to shop from just chat or speech. TikTok and other social media are closing the gap between users and shopping carts, and personalisation will be expected on all of them. Fit/sizing data allowing those users to find/match your products, will be paramount to unlocking your future revenue streams.
The Time to Tackle Fit is Now
Sizing and fit continue to be a major friction point in fashion e-commerce, directly contributing to lost sales, high return rates, and poor customer satisfaction. Virtual fitting solutions offer a clear path forward - increasing digital conversion, reducing returns while supporting sustainability goals.
The technology is no longer emerging - it’s here and ready to deliver results. With AI-powered and data modelling tools now offering accurate recommendations with minimal user inputs, there’s never been a better time to explore what’s possible. But success for you depends on finding a solution that truly fits your brand and needs - your goals, your available resources, and most importantly your customers.
If you’re serious about solving the fit problem, now is the time to take action. Start testing a few different tools, see what works for your customer journey and e-commerce site, and don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you want to learn more - we’re here to help.
See how brands like Under Armour and Asics use Virtusize to reduce returns by up to 27% and increase conversion rates by 10x.
Explore Our Business Cases:
