VIRTUAL FITTING ROOM COMPANY METAIL – THE PERFECT FIT FOR E-COMMERCE IN ASIA?

Asia-Pacific Uncategorized

Singapore, London and Cambridge based fashion technology company Metail has announced a contract with the largest e-commerce business in Brazil – Dafiti – and has now set its sights on the fashion e-commerce market in Asia.

  • Asia-Pacific e-commerce market to generate sales worth £681 billion in 2015
  • Fashion technology company Metail looks to replicate its success with Brazilian e-commerce giant Dafiti in Asia
  • Metail generates 30% uplift in sales amongst users in Dafiti trial

Following a trial last year with Dafiti, which is owned by global e-commerce incubator Rocket Internet, a long term contract to utilise Metail’s technology on over 7000 garments has been agreed. The products available include the ‘Dafiti Collection’, a new line fronted by Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosia. For the first time, users will be able to virtually try on a selection of the garments worn by the model.

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Users can try on the various garments worn by supermodel Alessandra Ambrosia on their MeModel

The trial confirmed that customers using Metail were found to spend 3.5 times longer on the site, than those who did not use the Metail technology. The overall benefit to Dafiti was a 30% increase in sales from the customers who used Metail as opposed to those who did not.

With the Asia-Pacific region dominating B2C e-commerce sales on a global scale and set to generate £681 billion in sales in 2015, Metail believes there is significant opportunity to replicate its success for Dafiti with online retailers across Asia, especially given the number of similar large-scale platforms in the region and continuing signs of rapid penetration of fashion e-commerce.

E-commerce sales for Asia-Pacific are expected to reach £1 trillion by 2017. As one of Asia’s most affluent and well connected countries, boasting a strong telecoms infrastructure and technology literate population, Singapore looks well-placed as a regional hub to benefit from such growth in the region.  

Kelvin Au, Managing Director of Metail Asia commented: “Building a business that we can scale globally has always been a key focus for Metail. We are very excited at the prospect of replicating our success with Dafiti in the Asian e-commerce market and beyond.

“South East Asia, and more specifically Singapore as a regional hub, boast some of the most exciting and fast growth fashion e-commerce sites in the world and we firmly believe that the integration of our technology could help propel these businesses even further on the global stage.”

“Metail has the potential to positively disrupt fashion e-commerce and our success in Brazil simply
illustrates this.” 

Dafiti’s Ben Bommert, Director of Special Operations confirmed “The hypothesis that Metail influences customers to buy more is proven; we have established that customers using MeModels on our site, buy more products than customers who don’t use the technology.”

Metail’s technology allows the user to create a three dimensional model of themselves and virtually try on a range of fashion garments. After entering a few simple measurements, consumers can generate a ‘MeModel’, which is 94-96% accurate to their specific size. The technology can be incorporated into any e-commerce platform and the company is able to photograph and digitise over 200 garments a day, facilitating work with mass market high volume retailers.

  1. According to eMarketer, July 2014

Founded in 2008, Metail is a fashion technology company which enables consumers to create a bespoke 3D model of themselves. The technology aims to increase consumer confidence in buying clothing online through an engaging and delightful product. Metail’s technology can be incorporated into any e-commerce platform. After entering a few simple measurements consumers can generate a MeModel, which is 94-96% accurate to their specific size.

Established by Cambridge graduate Tom Adeyoola, Metail has raised over $20 million in funding and officially launched with their first customer – Clothing at Tesco – in February 2012. The company has since developed an international client base, spanning House of Holland and Little Mistress and Evans in the UK and USA and Dafiti in South America.

Metail also created a world exclusive when collaborating with House of Holland for their London Fashion Week show in September 2014. Consumers could watch the catwalk show in real time and try on the outfits as they were revealed for the first time on the models. The concept was recreated for their AW15 show in February 2015 and has attracted more than 260,000 users to date.

Based across three offices in London, Cambridge and Singapore, Metail has built a talented and dedicated team of 44 employees.

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