H&M Secret Research And Development AR New Technology Interview CEO: Will Increase Digital Investment

The fast fashion development mode has already passed the bonus period, and enterprises are beginning to seek new development goals. Among them, digitization has become the direction for enterprises to focus their efforts.

H&M chief executive Karl-Johan Persson recently told reporters in Beijing Business Daily that in the coming period, H&M will strengthen digital investment in artificial intelligence and AR technology, so as to maintain price competitive advantage.

At the just concluded global change awards, the H&M foundation also provided 300 thousand euros to support a company that invented recyclable digital systems.

Industry experts believe that fast fashion companies are not just trying to make digital products in an attempt to do so, but take them as the main force to enhance their shopping experience and increase profits.

Secretly developing AR Technology

Fast fashion brands have experienced a rapid development stage after entering the Chinese market. But with the market saturation and the competition among brands, fast fashion has gradually entered the bottleneck stage. In order to change the performance that has been slowing down year by year, brand names are beginning to try new changes and move towards digital technology.

Beijing Business Daily reporter recently visited H&M Sweden headquarters, noted that H&M is developing a new AR technology, through an intelligent machine can identify the profile of consumers.

According to the staff at the scene, the identified consumers can choose different sizes of "virtual clothing" according to their own needs, and consumers can match the clothing of different scenes to meet the demand through the machine. The machine can even choose the most suitable individual products through different skin color and appearance features.

In fact, H&M has already tested the water intelligent interactive equipment. In July 2018, H&M launched a voice activated intelligent interactive mirror authorized by Microsoft at the flagship store of times square in New York. Consumers can get fashion recommendations through smart lenses, and put forward suggestions on clothing styles according to the needs of consumers.

You can also display your personal style through smart mirrors and become the latest H&M magazine cover model.

In order to better stimulate people's desire to use, shopping through smart glasses can enjoy special privileges.

H&M chief executive Karl-Johan Persson, in an interview with the Beijing Commercial Daily, said that H&M recently invested in different areas of digital technology, such as a technology to test whether clothes fit well, and consumers can check the fit of clothing according to the technology.

In addition, H&M has invested a lot of money in 3D technology and AI.

Future trends can be predicted based on these data to better distribute products.

Karl-Johan Persson believes that H&M is at a low price segment in many similar companies. H&M wants to provide more consumers with better quality and lower price products. Future Ltd will continue to invest more in sustainable development and increase shopping experience to continue to maintain price competitive advantage.

Long term profit with recycling technology

H&M attaches importance to digitalization not only in internal investment and R & D, but also in external financial support.

In the just concluded global change awards, the H&M foundation has offered 300 thousand euros to support a company that invented recyclable digital systems.

This recyclable mode from Circular.fashion in Germany enables each garment to be recycled from design to dress and then to recycling.

It is understood that H&M has given the highest financial support to this digital project compared with other sustainable projects.

It is understood that the project through an intelligent digital system, so that clothing from design to wear to recycling can be recycled, forming a closed loop.

The system even stipulates the selection, tailoring and production effects of each material on the earth, and maintains the product specifications as digital ID. Consumers can visit the product website by scanning the digital loop ID, and the website shows the best choice of clothing after use to encourage consumers to reuse, update or recycle clothing.

Ina Budde, co-founder of Circular.fashion, said that within five years, the team's innovative ideas will increase the possibility of fiber recycling and repeated reuse.

It is estimated that 150 million circularity.ID (circular labels) will be put on the market to ensure that each recycled garment can be regenerated into high quality fibers after use.

In the view of Zhang Peiying, an honorary consultant and fashion expert of the China luxury Confederation, it is apparent that the development of sustainable clothing will bring enormous cost pressure to the enterprises. But with the maturity and application of digital technology, the development of sustainable technology will reduce the cost of clothing and bring profits to enterprises.

Digitalization will become the main force.

In fact, in recent two years, the major garment enterprises are investing more in digital technology.

Earlier, Japan's fast fashion company UNIQLO launched an unmanned retail store and launched the vending machine "Uniqlo to Go" in airports and shopping malls in 10 cities such as Oakland, Hollywood, highland, Houston and New York in August last year, using this way of sales to save manpower and rental costs.

Last April, ZARA also tested the AR experience in 137 shops around the world, and consumers could implement the technology through ZARA AR in mobile devices.

Industry analysts believe that whether H&M, ZARA or UNIQLO, want to attract young consumers through the experience of black technology, so that they can shop and take pictures to query, through the word of mouth let the brand two spread.

This is also to cope with the annual slowdown in the growth of fast fashion brands.

For example, H&M tries smart fitting mirrors, and ZARA launches AR shopping, which is the way to attract consumers' eyeballs.

In the form of downhill physical stores, brands need more new technologies to retain users.

Zhang Peiying said that fast fashion enterprises have not only tried to do these products, but rather have digitalization and technology as the main force in the future.

At this stage, fast fashion brands can no longer satisfy simple design and speed, but also need to consider from marketing means, provide consumers with better experience, and further reduce costs through technology to increase profits.

Author: Wang Xiaoran Chen Yunzhe