Amazon today is launching a way for customers to create custom clothing with a new service called Made for You, which lets shoppers create a custom T-shirt to their exact measurements. But unlike some companies that use mobile technology to scan and measure your body from an app, Amazon Fashion’s Made for You service requires users to provide the company with their height, weight, body style and two photos of themselves to get measured for their custom fit.
After users provide their data, they can then choose from a selection of eight colorways, as well as preferred sleeve and shirt lengths, necklines and fabrics.
To get started with Made for You, users choose between the two types of fabrics to customize the design. This includes the mediumweight 100% Pima Cotton shirt or the lightweight 56% Pima Cotton, 38% Modal and 6% Elastane tri-blend options. They can then choose other aspects of their shirt — like either a slim, classic or relaxed fit, a crew or V-neck, and short or long-sleeve length, for example.
The shirts can even include your name printed on the label, as a small perk.
When finished, customers can view the product they customized on a virtual body double before placing the order. The experience works both on web and inside the Amazon app.
The custom shirts cost $25 and are available to all Amazon customers in the U.S., not just Prime members.
At launch, influencers including Blake Scott (650K followers on Instagram), Caralyn Mirand (253K Instagram followers) and Sai de Silva (330K Instagram followers) are touting the new feature on Amazon’s behalf and are featured in its marketing.
Custom clothing is often seen as a luxury and this process does make it more affordable. That can be helpful for those who struggle with fit due to measurements that fall outside of traditional sizing. But the service also seems to be a pretty transparent attempt to grab customer data for the Amazon Fashion business.
Amazon, however, characterizes Made for You as part of its ongoing efforts to eliminate online shopping challenges — this time, size and fit. Over time, the company says it wants to expand Made for You with more styles and selections, based on customer feedback.
The retailer has been focused on its fashion business for years, having experimented in the past with its Echo Look camera that would help users rate their styling choices. Today, Amazon uses data from its social feature, #FoundItOnAmazon, to feed images to “Style by Alexa” for fashion inspiration and to drive sales. And with Prime Wardrobe and its optional styling service, Amazon attempts to learn what its customers like to wear and then automate the shopping process by curating items to try on at home in batches.
Though Amazon didn’t explain how it may put the collected data to use to aid its Amazon Fashion business beyond custom clothing, it did say the data was securely stored and customers could delete their data at any time by tapping the profile icon at the top left of the Made for You home page. Amazon also says the uploaded photos aren’t stored and are deleted immediately after being used to create the virtual body double and determine measurements.
With Amazon’s goal with all these efforts to improve online apparel shopping, it could potentially extend to other areas — for example, by helping Amazon build out its dozens of private labels in apparel. And with the added data on real-world customer sizing, the retailer could learn how to better cut its clothing for the best fit. It could even be working on systems that could later help customers select their right size just from a photo, perhaps.
Made for You is launching today in the U.S. across web and mobile.
Amazon launches a $4.99-per-month ‘personal shopper’ service for men’s fashion
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