Last week seems to have been a great week for online shopping platform Zalora. After announcing that they would be offering scholarships to young talents looking to break into the fashion industry, they then revealed that they now have on board popular British high street labels Topshop and Topman.
This move is a win for both Zalora and Topshop/Topman, of course: while the latter already have their respective online stores to speak of, partnering with Zalora will give them a greater reach, especially in markets where they don’t already have physical stores — but where Zalora ships to. Zalora, on the other hand, can draw from the popularity of the British brands to expand beyond the region.
Apart from simply announcing their partnership, though, they also unveiled the region’s first Virtual Reality (VR) experience that gave guests and customers the chance to view behind the scenes footage of Topshop/Topman’s fashion photo shoots via Google Cardboard.
While this might not seem like much to the average shopper, it does signal the growing role that tech is playing in the online shopping space. These days, it’s no longer enough for e-commerce platforms to offer a wide variety of products for sale; consumers are looking for fresh ways to enhance their online shopping experience. And sites offering such forms of engagement — like Metail, which allows visitors to create 3D models of themselves to get a better idea of the fit of clothes — is proof of that.
Dione Song, Managing Director of ZALORA Singapore, said, “The use of virtual reality technology and fashion was a natural and seamless marriage for a fashion e-commerce company like ZALORA. We wanted to engage with our consumers in a new way, while injecting a dose of fun into the mix.”
And more than the novel experience that this venture into VR brings, it also opens up a crazy amount of possibilities for the future: imagine being able to view with greater detail what you’ll look like in any piece of clothing without actually having to try it on — or even leave your house.
There might never be the need for a fitting room again.
