Nearly one in four (24.4%) online apparel orders are returned, and the most common reason, cited by 53% of clothing retailers, is fit, according to a 2023 Coresight Research report. That’s why clothing retailers are so bullish on online virtual try-on tools, with 27% reporting they already had them and another 58% planning to add them in the future, per Coresight.
Now Tote, a retail technology startup, has a solution that ensures online shoppers get the right size by enticing them to come to a store to try it on properly.
Daniel Nickel, founder and CEO of Tote, said the concept arose from his own frustration. Nickel, who lives in Brooklyn, once saw a jacket on J.Crew’s website, and walked into a J.Crew in Tribeca, only to be told that it wasn’t in stock but was in another location on the Upper East Side.
When he got home, he ordered four jackets from J.Crew online, expecting to return three but ultimately returning all four, an inconvenience for him and—particularly in the free returns and shipping era when this occurred—a major expense without a sale for the retailer.
“This was a pretty crappy experience, not just for me, the shopper who didn’t get what I wanted and then was saddled with these returns, but for the brand too, who missed out on a sale, who paid for shipping twice, and then paid the cost of reprocessing these items that are out of stock for six to eight weeks,” Nickel told Retail Brew.
An alternative scenario occurred to Nickel.
If “I could have told them, like, ‘Hey, J.Crew, I’m Dan. I’m coming into your Tribeca store Wednesday after work at 5:30. I’d like to try on these three pairs of jeans and these three jackets. Can you have them pulled aside? Can you have them waiting for me in a fitting room?’ That would have solved everything,” Nickel said.
Dressing vroom: Tote first piloted its solution in 2022 and released it officially in 2023, and today it’s live in 82 stores, according to Nickel.
Tote is a paid app that integrates with the ubiquitous Shopify ecommerce platform. Online shoppers encounter the option on product pages, where near the add-to-cart button, there’s another button, “Try on in-store.” Then a Tote pop-up window prompts them to choose a store and time when the items will be waitng in a dressing room, and shoppers get an email confirmation, Google Calendar invite, and text reminder.
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Nickel said the average return rate among shoppers who book an in-store try-on through Tote is under 2%, compared to the aforementioned average for online apparel purchases of 24.4%. Tote also claims that when customers show up for the appointment, they complete the purchase more than 95% of the time, and spend two to three times more on average than they do online.
As for how many shoppers keep their in-store appointment, Nickel said about 75% do, meaning one in four are no-shows.
Non-virtual try on: Fitness brand Bandier began offering the Tote try-on option for all five of its stores in September, following a three-month pilot for three of them. According to Tote, 50% of Bandier shoppers are buying more than just the items that were set up for their appointments.
That’s because the sales staff start the upsell before their appointments arrive. Along with the item they want to try on, “we also try to do a slight alternative, so something similar, but maybe in a different color, or maybe in a slightly different silhouette,” Christine Gayant, VP of retail stores at Bandier, told Retail Brew. “And then we also try to do an element of surprise, so something that we feel like based on this initial selection they maybe could really like.”
If someone who makes an appointment to try something on at a Bandier store had not shopped the brand before, all the better, Gayant said.
Tote has helped the brand win over new customers because “they were really coming in with a purpose and with an idea, as opposed to just somebody walking in and just browsing,” Gayant said.
Sales staff at the stores don’t earn commission for online sales, so naturally appreciate that Tote drives customers into stores where they can.
The in-store staff “were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re gonna have more appointments with more clients. This is fantastic,’” Gayant said of their initial response, which remains upbeat. “The store teams absolutely love it.”