NetVirta has officially released what it says is the first FDA-cleared app for 3D body scanning. Apparel and footwear brands can now use Verifyt, which has hosted 3D foot scanning since December, to scan a shopper’s full body in an effort to provide them with an accurate fit.
The Verifyt scanning technology is designed to provide what NetVirta calls “close-to-medical” accuracy, since it is operating on 375 million data points taken over the company’s eight years of work in the medical industry. Prior to its retail application, Verifyt assisted clinicians in 13 countries to 3D scan patients to obtain custom-fit prostheses.
The purpose of the app, which is available for both iOS and Android users, is to help reduce returns and increase conversions, according to NetVirta. The company cited National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that returns totaled $428 billion last year, and highlighted another survey from BodyBlock AI indicating that 72 percent of returns are caused by poor fit. In addition, the company is hoping its solution will help reduce the industry’s level of waste that contributes 5 billion pounds of returned goods to landfills every year.
These high numbers show that retailers still struggle with incorrect and inconsistent sizing standards.
NetVirta also founded the app on the belief that modern sizing charts and technologies that predicate their recommendations on comparisons still don’t solve the underlying issues related to online apparel shopping.
By mapping a customer’s body measurements to the dimensional data of a brand’s apparel and footwear products, NetVirta seeks to provide customers with precise size recommendations for a truly custom fit. The body-scanning process extracts more than 200 measurements.
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Jeff Chen, founder and CEO of NetVirta, noted that sizing consistencies are an issue even within brands. This is why he says the company works with brands to produce product-specific recommendations to their customers, based on product specs and the customer’s 3D body data.
Brands can aggregate 3D body data in the Verifyt BI Portal once the consumer scans themselves with the Verifyt app and then connect shopper profiles with their BI Portal account.
The app enables consumers to create 3D avatars of themselves at home using just a few photos. These models can generate personalized fit recommendations from brand partners, which are designed to prevent consumers from purchasing multiple sizes and ultimately takes the guesswork out of online ordering.
In particular, this can help prevent bracketing, a growing practice in fashion where consumers ship themselves multiple sizes and return those that don’t fit, which can be highly costly and wasteful for the retailer.
Shoppers can even capture their measurements and share them to give brands better insight into the fit specifications of custom-fitted garments and footwear.
Leveraging the consumer scans, NetVirta also can build data libraries of fit avatars, export avatars into 3D fashion design software to verify garment design and fit, eliminate costs of physical fittings and samplings and improve speed to market efficiencies.
Founded by researchers from MIT, the Verifyt app features an augmented reality-based user experience and precise 3D model generation based on 2D information users capture from their smartphone. Verifyt is compatible with 87 percent of smartphone devices in North America, 93 percent in EMEA and 90 percent in APAC.
After working behind the scenes since 2019 with several major fashion brands to enhance the solution, NetVirta is now in various stages of pilots with more than 15 global brands and retailers.
NetVirta said several major partnerships will be announced over the next few months, as the Verifyt rollout commences a string of brand launches.