Category: Technology

In her latest audio blog, our president and CEO shares the latest trend in retail tech.

Transcript of “Spatial Computing” audio blog:

Hello! It’s been a minute since we’ve recorded one of our KG audio blogs, but I am glad to be back and excited you have joined me today! I’m Catherine Seeds, president and CEO of Ketner Group.

Today, we are taking a closer look at the exciting world of spatial computing.

Before we dig in to see how retailers and brands are using this technology, let’s level set on what exactly it is.

According to the very smart folks at PC Magazine, spatial computing is a technology that enables computers to blend in with the physical world in a natural and seamless way. Not to be confused with a similar technology, augmented reality, which is a digital layer that augments reality by laying on top of it. 

To explain further, TechTarget defines spatial computing as a technology that “mirrors how we interact with virtual objects in the real world. For a human using spatial computing, the technology would ‘translate the two-dimensional images that they see into a 3D model of the world, make sense of objects in the world and then direct their hands to act.’”

The potential for spatial computing in retail is significant, especially with the launch of Apple’s Vision Pro and the forthcoming Google Glass. According to Brainy Insights, the U.S. market size for spatial computing will grow from 108.9 billion in 2023 to 815.2 billion by 2033. 

To further my point, McKinsey named immersive-reality technologies one of the top technology trends of the year, estimating that the “metaverse could generate up to $4 trillion to $5 trillion in value across consumer and enterprise use cases by 2030.”

So, let’s dive in and explore a few use cases on this amazing technology.

A new vehicle for product discovery and shopper interaction

In February of this year, e.l.f. Cosmetics announced one of the first beauty shopping apps for Apple Vision Pro, aptly named “your best e.l.f.” The app was created in partnership with the brilliant team at Obsess. In their blog discussing the project with e.l.f., Obsess describes the app as a way for shoppers to deepen their relationship with the brand through immersive exploration and branded games.

In the visionOS shopping app, users can participate in activities like guided meditations, stretching exercises and a “Paint by Numbers” game. With spatial computing, users can also “unwind and explore the best versions of themselves through playful, inspirational environments that contextualize an assortment of 3D e.l.f. products.”

Changing the game for all things virtual

Another first in the industry is J.Crew’s virtual closet app on Apple Vision Pro. Also powered by spatial computing, the app is an immersive shopping platform (see the trend here?) which gives shoppers the opportunity to shop J.Crew products in a 3D environment. With the app, users can:

• Use intuitive hand and eye movements to browse a selection of J.Crew items
• Mix and match pieces to create an ideal outfit for any occasion
• See how the outfits look on their personal in-app mannequin. 

What is even more amazing about the app is the SharePlay FaceTime feature, which again, allows for shared experiences for a shopper. The app uses a digital twin of a person, complete with subtle facial expressions and gestures, that allow them to do 1:1 video calls with a J.Crew expert stylist or group video chats with friends and family to get feedback in real time! 

According to Halsey Anderson, VP of Marketing at J.Crew. “We’re particularly excited for our J.Crew stylists to use Apple Vision Pro to work with customers in a more dynamic way than ever before, via SharePlay in FaceTime. This incredible technology, combined with our rich brand heritage of best-in-class service, will provide endless styling capabilities.”

Ready to go shopping, anyone?

No turning back when it comes to immersive technologies

For those of us earning our living in the world of retail, we know that as technology evolves, so do the expectations and shopping behaviors of consumers. Just like mobile commerce or the online shopping beast that is Amazon has quickly become a part of the retail zeitgeist, so too will spatial computing. 

The possibilities for this immersive technology are endless. I mean, check out what the team at Augmodo is doing in the grocery space! With spatial computing, they can

create a 3D “Realogram” for each store, aka, a digital twin or map of that store, and everything in it.

As the team at Combeenation puts it, spatial computing “could become a mass phenomenon and fundamentally change the way we shop.” Personally, I’m excited to see which retailers and brands step up to the plate next. All the data and experts tell us that spatial computing is here to stay, and I agree!

Thanks for joining me today. Let’s keep the conversation going! 

Get in touch today to find out how our retail expertise can help drive brand awareness and support your marketing goals. 

As I type this, the weather is a beautiful 83 degrees in Austin, TX. This means that I’m wearing one of my favorite Spring dresses from last year. It’s yellow with blue flowers, has the perfect size and cut of spaghetti straps, with an empire waist that “slims” me in all the right places. In fact, when taking my son to the orthodontist today, I received two compliments! 

It’s days and outfits like this that put a little extra spring in my step! 

So where did I get this dress, you ask? It came from my latest shopping obsession over the last few years – the subscription box.

My path to personalized shopping – the subscription box

Confession time. I subscribe to two different subscription boxes once a month – the tried-and-true StitchFix and Daily Look.

For years, I avoided these services because I didn’t want to commit myself to recurring charges. Plus, I was a little unsure of having someone else do the shopping for me. 

It wasn’t until my very good friend starting raving about her subscription services, and how much fun it was, that I slowly started coming around to the idea. 

If I’m being honest, the real reason I moved towards subscription boxes was because I had become extremely stressed and overwhelmed by the whole shopping experience.

As a working mom of two, time is a luxury. I wasn’t thrilled about spending hours helplessly combing through racks and racks of clothes, only to end up empty-handed. Which is exactly what was happening. I found myself not enjoying the retail experience at my favorite apparel stores like I used to. There were far too many options and none of them seemed just right for me.

But not all was lost. 

(Quick sidenote, in addition to jumping on the subscription box bandwagon, I started spending more and more time, and money, at a local Austin-area apparel boutique, Grit & Grace, co-owned by a college friend. The concept of her shop, and many others, is simple and brilliant. A smaller, curated selection of beautiful and trendy clothes and only offering one to two of each size per item. With this approach, I knew it was highly unlikely that I would be wearing the same outfit as other people in my town. I was also supporting a local business. Perfect!)

The joy of the box!

After doing my research and comparing the styles, prices, and customer reviews at the wide variety of subscription box options, I took a chance and subscribed to the aforementioned StitchFix and Daily Look.

For me, this new approach to shopping has been a gamechanger, as it has for millions of other subscribers. Each month, my “personal stylist” sends me curated apparel and footwear items to select from. Then, I send back the items I don’t want to keep. Easy!

Even though I typically know what is going to be in my boxes, due to the preview feature that both companies offer, it still feels a little bit like Christmas morning every time a box is delivered to my front porch. It’s made shopping fun again.

What’s more, I’m excited now about the items in my wardrobe, and I love the compliments. I only wish I had started the service sooner.

Challenges ahead for subscription box companies

As much as I have raved about my experiences so far, there have been a few bumps in the road. For each service, it took a good six months and a few personal stylist changes to get things right.

For example, I have short legs, so I am very particular about the length of my jeans and shorts. I must remind my stylist from time to time about this and other preferences that I have. Some boxes have missed the mark completely and I have to send everything back. 

Even with all of this, the time I’ve gained back and the quality of clothes I’ve accumulated over the past few years more than outweighs any mistakes or misses in my service.

But there are challenges ahead for these services.

Research shows that the subscription ecommerce market is projected to reach over $450 billion by 2025, up from $15 billion in 2019. Impressive numbers, but can they be sustained?

According to CNBCs Lauren Thomas, “Not that long ago, major retailers were scrambling to get in on the subscription craze sweeping the apparel industry. But then the pandemic upended daily routines and made shopping behaviors far less predictable. Now, some analysts and investors are questioning the appeal of these types of businesses and their ability to hold onto customers, who often sign up during a big life change but eventually lose interest.”

Battling subscription box fatigue

While this hasn’t been the case for me, the stats do show that many shoppers are experiencing box fatigue. Many are rethinking their investments in subscriptions in general:

• Over the last year, Stitch Fix has lost 95% of its value as the company’s attempts to expand beyond subscriptions have floundered.
• M Science, an analytics firm, says new customers account for a predominant share of sales at Stitch Fix, but their spending generally drops off over time. Roughly 40% of Stitch Fix’s revenue has been generated by new customers since its fiscal first quarter of 2020, the firm found.
• Data from Kearney shows that 40% of consumers think they have too many subscriptions. The survey indicated that the most spending is on streaming plans, followed by music and video subscriptions, gaming, food memberships, and beverage boxes. Shopping subscriptions, which includes fashion, came after all of those categories.

What does the future hold for subscription boxes?

Time will only tell how things will shake out with these services, but things look a bit bleak right now.

As recently reported in RetailWire, Blue Apron and Rent The Runway announced layoffs last year while restructuring. Birchbox announced in November it was considering bankruptcy. 

The Atlantic reported last year that “the subscription space was undergoing a shakeout.” Columnist Amanda Mull wrote, “As more markets become oversaturated with these kinds of services, more buyers will get bored of the concept entirely, and investors will eventually become weary of waiting for profit.”

As a new fan of subscription boxes, I am saddened to hear this. But if the business model doesn’t work or excite shoppers, then their long-term viability is at risk. 

In my own personal experience, it hasn’t always been perfect. But as far as I’m concerned, it sure beats the alternative. And have I mentioned the compliments I receive when wearing one of my new subscription box outfits? 

All kidding aside, I hope that these companies continue to evolve and adapt to ever-changing consumer behavior. It won’t be easy. I’ll leave that part to the experts, save one suggestion: be sure to keep the “joy” of personalized shopping with a monthly or quarterly box of new apparel items at the center of every decision. That’s what brought me here in the first place, and what will, hopefully keep me sticking around.

If you have any comments or insights on subscription boxes, our crew would like to hear from you! The Ketner Group team loves to talk retail! Give us a shout to learn how our retail expertise can help elevate brand awareness and support your marketing goals.

I don’t know about y’all, but after spending months at home during COVID, I was thrilled to be back in “real clothes” and out of lounge wear. Fashion retailers were ready to have us back, too, and technology played a significant role in driving consumers back to their favorite brands. 

In fact, according to McKinsey & Company’s 2022 State of Fashion Tech Report, fashion companies invested between 1.6 and 1.8% of their revenues in technology in 2021. That figure is expected to rise to between 3.0 and 3.5% by 2030.

There are so may innovative things happening in fashion tech, and specifically, with women-led tech startups. I just had to go directly to the source of this innovation and learn more, again!

I spoke with Jackie Trebilcock, managing director for the New York Fashion Tech Lab (NYFTL) back in 2020. We recently had a chance to catch up with her again, and what a treat that was!

Founded in 2014, the Lab connects a cohort of women-led B2B, fashion and retail-focused technology companies that are fostering iteration, validation and acceleration of technologies to advance the industry.

I had a blast learning even more about the Lab and what Jackie and her team are doing to support women-owned tech companies. Enjoy our conversation!

For those readers who don’t know you, can tell us a little bit about you and your journey to the Lab?

I joined the New York Fashion Tech Lab at the end of 2014. They were looking for someone to run the cohort that was launching for 2015.

I’ve worked in fashion for over 20 years, and I’ve been an entrepreneur myself, so I understand both sides of it, which is why I was so excited when I had reached out to the Lab’s parent company, Springboard Enterprises. I just thought what they were doing was so cool and I wanted to learn more. And here I am, many years later.

What was the catalyst for the creation of the Lab, and why the focus on women-led companies?

Founded in 2000, Springboard Enterprises is a nonprofit organization specifically focusing on women-led companies. Springboard runs a myriad of programs (i.e., bootcamps, accelerators, etc.) in a wide variety of sectors such as life science, biotech, women’s health, general tech and ad tech. 

In 2014, when they were looking to expand into different sectors. They realized that the fashion and retail industries were a bit behind some of the advancements they were seeing in technology in those other industries. That’s when the NYFTL was born!

I describe Springboard as a venture catalyst because their main mission is to help give women resources to raise money and grow and scale their companies. The Lab does that too, but we are more of a business catalyst. We are in partnership with leading retailers and brands that are looking to keep their finger on the pulse of new technologies that address pain points or take out an area of friction for them.

I would love to hear your insights on innovation and the changes that you’ve seen in the fashion tech industry since you’ve been with the NYFTL.

It has been exciting to see the progress that’s been made within the industry over the past eight years. In the beginning, we were mostly engaging with CTOs and CIOs because that’s where technology really sat at some of these larger retailer and brand partners.

Now, there are so many different points of contact within these retailers and brands. We often engage with CMOs, innovation leads, digital strategy, or eCommerce. It’s really everyone’s job to know what’s out there from a technology standpoint. Tech is everywhere and in everything!

We’ve become another way for fashion retailers to keep their finger on the pulse and to do it together. It’s important that they feel like they are not doing it in a silo, but as an industry.

I would imagine that all this work and the things that you’re doing at the Lab inspires you every day!

Yes! I think I have the coolest job in the world as I kind of get to sit in the middle of being in contact with retailers and brands, understanding what’s happening there, and getting the opportunity to meet inspiring women creating these awesome and needed solutions for this industry.

My personal mission with all of this is to be a connector for our retail and brand partners, the alumni companies, the companies in the Lab, and for the industry in general. It’s exciting to see what can happen when you make that connection.

Can you provide a few examples of how the Lab has helped to propel women in fashion tech forward?

We’ve had 69 companies go through the program since its inception. We’ll be onboarding another group of Lab companies for 2023. What we have seen and what we track with the Lab companies are the partnerships and pilots that come from the program, which happens all the time.

There is also so much that can come from candid feedback from the retail executives as part of this program, which can save the startups so much time as they continue to build and iterate on their product. We also have another network of 80 industry experts, entrepreneurs and investors that they get to connect with and get feedback from, and of course opportunity for investment.

The Lab is an ongoing community that is part of the companies’ entrepreneurial journey – whether they are looking to hire, pivot, get acquired or fundraise.

As you look ahead in your crystal ball, what are you most excited about with regards to the fashion tech industry?

On our website, we have this whole list of “areas of interest” and it’s something that we are constantly adding, removing and refining. What excites me most are the things that we don’t even know exist!

If you think about the very buzzy tech trends, like NFTs and Web3, they didn’t exist before a few years ago. I know there will be other new innovations and advancements like that. It’s exciting to think that we are going to get to uncover them, spend time learning about them with the retail and brand partners and make them part of our areas of focus.

I agree you do have the coolest job in the world! As we wrap up, what opportunities are available for anyone interested in becoming more involved with NYFTL?

Application for our 2023 program has already closed, but if you are an entrepreneur interested in applying for the Lab for next year, I recommend getting in touch with us as soon as possible. We start connecting with and tracking companies very early.

If you’re a retailer or brand that wants to learn more about becoming involved, it’s a great time now to potentially join us for 2023, or we can do sessions with you so you can meet some of the alumni.

We also have an active expert network made up of industry experts, entrepreneurs and investors that connect in with the Lab companies as part of the program.

How can we learn more?

To learn more about the NYFTL, email info@nyftlab or visit https://nyftlab.com/.