Over the past few years, Walmart (NYSE: WMT) has been working to enlarge their clothing department in order to engage customers with their trendy items. Since the online world of shopping is growing significantly, customers not only desire variety in clothing style, but also an appealing and personable online experience that could make shopping for clothes both pleasurable and sociable.
Based upon Walmart's vision, they intend to obtain Zeekit, a female-founded, Israeli company that merges fashion and technology through a virtual fitting room in order to make an enhanced customer and social experience. It is referred to as "virtual try-on" and it comes from a desire to understand how items will fit on customers. Zeekit will overall enable experiences that are all-inclusive and customized to individual needs. Customers will be able to acquire try-on items via Zeekit's technology from national brands such as Free People, Champion and Levi's Strauss, Time and Tru, Terra & Sky, and so on.
When the experience becomes live on walmart.com, customers are encouraged to upload their pictures or to pick from models that best signify their height, shape, and skin tone so that they can perceive what they would look like. The option of sharing their virtual appearance with their friends is also available. In obtaining this particular start-up company, Walmart plans to enhance the customer experience by making it more engaging and sociable.
"Virtual try-on is a game-changer and solves what has historically been one of the most difficult things to replicate online - understanding fit and how an item will actually look on you," said Denise Incandela, EVP of Apparel and Private Brands, Walmart U.S., in a press release. "Zeekit will help us deliver an inclusive, immersive and personalized experience for our diverse customer base."
Through the acquisition of the Israeli fashion company, Zeekit, Walmart will be able to expand their horizons and to include customers that they previously had not. It will surely be an experience that will be both exciting and compelling, as both companies strive to work together for customer satisfaction, and to fit along with new trends.