Louise Guay at the Club e-Luxe Summit 2009, Paris

Strategies for Luxury Website Design, e-Merchandising & e-Customization

Last June, Louise Guay and Gregory Saumier-Finch presented My Virtual Model to the luxury industry leaders at the Ritz Hotel, Paris. The Club e-Luxe Summit is held each year since 2007 by Uché Okonkwo, Luxe Corp.

Luxe.TV Interviews - Click to play

"As the creator of My Virtual Model, the 3-D visual merchandising application that enables the re-creation of the real-self in the virtual space, Louise's presentation was filled with her passion of visionary invention that transform everyone into an online star.

Louise took the audience on a journey of virtual self discovery by demonstrating how to create a personalized avatar, which enables users to try on products ranging from apparel, shoes, bags and jewellery as well as to test as many "looks" as one wishes. She also introduced My Virtual Model fashion community and its role in shaping the collective experiences of online users who are increasingly being exposed to 3D virtual interactions. The power of the online community through engagement and sharing of content prior to making purchases was also underlined.

Her proposition for luxury brands was that the online shopping experience should be fun and a celebration of the luxury brand through unique personalized experiences online."

Source: Luxe Corp Summit Book 2009

Raving Reviews of My Virtual Model

Did you ever try Google Books? A search for "My Virtual Model" returns some 150 citations. I selected these four recent books which look pretty interesting.

Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World's Most Powerful Consumers, by Bridget Brennan, Crown Business, 2009

"The website Sears.com does the zoom function one better through its "My Virtual Model" feature. The site allows shoppers to input their height, weight, and personal characteristics--even a photo of themselves--to create their own animated online model to try on clothing. It also offers the same feature for home fashions section of the site, enabling shoppers to click and paste everything from furniture to paint colors in images of rooms. It's brilliant and totally unexpected."

Designing Web Interfaces: Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions, by Bill Scott, Theresa Neil, O'Reilly Media, 2009

"Showing a close-up of a camera on an electronics site is a common technique. But what sets a Live Preview apart from a simple preview is its interactive nature.

Lands' End uses a tool called My Virtual Model to bring Live Previews to clothes shopping. It is based on the premise that if you can show what the clothes will look like on the shoppers, they will be happier with their purchases. While virtual models can only come so close to reality, users can personalize the model with their height, weight, body shape, and so on. Then when they select shirts, pants, and shoes, their virtual model will appear dressed with the items."

Electronic Commerce, by Gary Schneider, Course Technology, 2008

"About 15 percent of visitors to the site use the virtual model and, on average, dress the model 40 times during a visit. Lands' End has found that the dollar amount of orders placed by customers who use the virtual model is about 10 percent larger than other orders. The Canadian company that developed this Web site feature, My Virtual Model, has sold the technology to a number of other clothing retailers."

Chocolates on the pillow aren't enough: reinventing the customer experience, by Jonathan M. Tisch, Karl Weber, Wiley, 2007

"To be effective, technology must be subservient to human ends. The software and web site features used by Lands' End to develop custom clothing designs look simple and may even seem a little hokey. (Does it really matter that My Virtual Model has hair the same length, color, and curliness as mine?) But they help customers take psychological ownership of their clothes even before they order them, providing a sense of figurative comfort that matches the literal comfort we enjoy in well-fitting clothes."

Bing and My Virtual Model Visual Search

Bing Visual Search is making the news! For us at MVM, seeing the words "Visual Search" marketed by Microsoft means that the idea is catching on. Bing tells everyone what My Virtual Model believes since a long time. Searching is visual, like in "looking for".

People asked us what's the difference between Bing and My Virtual Model Visual Search. At this time, it’s important to note that differences may be less relevant than goals and objectives.

My Virtual Model devoted 10 years of research in online fashion marketing and we draw some interesting conclusions about visual search. Like text-based search, a visual search solution must provide a way to enter queries and do something with the results. What really makes them two separate engines, though, is that people don't expect visual search to yield the same thing as keyword search engines. If they were the same, why switch to the new gizmo?

Text-based search can easily find pictures using keywords. Visual search uses key images to find matching attributes. The key image concept is what makes MVM Visual Search so easy to use. It fills the gap between experts and novices, following the WYSIWYG rule. To use My Virtual Model Visual Search, people do not have to know about keywords and attributes. They just pick and choose what they like to see.

For text-based search, it is assumed that people know how to read and write, so that's probably what they want to do with the results. If they are searching for an image, they want to see it, right? Wrong. There's a second part to this story.

Delivering pictures to users is not enough. People ought to be able to do things with them. A true visual search solution must provide a graphic interface to use the results. Basic image search would only display results on web pages and provide links to follow. Visual Search extends from 2D to 3D space where users can organize things visually and see how they fit together. Like words, foods or clothes, images take new flavors from their neighbors. Mixing and matching them while searching for the next missing thing is what makes MVM Visual Search a complete user experience.

While developing our 3D shopping engine for apparel retailers, My Virtual Model came across the issue of visual search quite naturally. But rather than adding "visual" in front of "search", we found ourselves with an overwhelming wealth of "visuals" in need of a state-of-the-art "search". Fortunately, MVM staff comprises a few fashion experts and patternmakers mastering the field. They provided the knowledge necessary to build the MVM Key Image Pictionary.

Then the mix-and-match issue came up: how to allow 2D pictures to share the same 3D space as My Virtual Model. And there, we were fortunate again to borrow our solution from Louise Guay's seminal Ph.D. thesis, "The Pocket Museum" (1986) where she described the multimedia experience as collage in a social communication environment. I think people should know how fortunate we are.

Back to Microsoft and Bing. It becomes obvious now why traditional search engines have so much trouble delivering a great shopping experience to users. Don't take me wrong, this situation may change very soon. Search engines are focusing on advertising revenues, leaving the shopping experience to retailers. In the not so far future, successful online retailers will be focusing more on publishing accurate and timely product feeds, leaving the experience part to vertical shopping engines. Shoppers are already expecting search engines to provide that kind of service. And every retailer knows that traffic is not born from their brand alone but mostly from these search engines.

So search engines who want to grow their share of advertising revenues should prepare to hire taxonomists and user experience specialists. Merchandisers need visual shopping engines that deliver highly qualified customers passed the revolving doors, right in front of their products.

My Virtual Model Community Launches in Beta

Since last December, the MVM.com website is hosting a Social Shopping Community where people can create outfit collages around their 3D virtual model and share their looks with other members.

By the end of January, members had published over 15,000 looks. They commented each other’s looks and found their way to Shopping.com, our shopping partner.

As the Community keeps evolving, user groups will form by style, affinity, region, city, age, activities, and thanks to MVM’s unique personalization features, even by shape and body type.

Shopping by looks created by people brings together the best of all micro-experiences, unbelievable user endorsement and ratings, reliable cross-selling, color and style mix-and-match, fashion help you can trust, and most of all: a sense of belonging that is found only in your neighboring shopping mall.

Listen to what users are saying:

Style Feedback

• This look is really great!! I love the fact that you chose that type of stockings, instead of pantyhose ; )
• Cute! Completely stylish, this look incorporates a vintage grudge feel with a modern, rocker-esque edge.
• Love the color block look. Very stylish. Bag goes well with dress.
• Shoes don't go w/ outfit....
• hmm.. how about adding cardigan or trenchcoat?

Color Match

• I'm not really sure how the red and orange and grey go together, but you probably know more than I. It's cute.
• I love love love! purple is one of my favorite colours and since i like jeans a lot... this is an excelent outfit!
• this shining white is best combined with yellow gold, gives the white royally brightness ;))))
• The blue stripes make this outfit look fresh. And it compliment your eyes. Cute.
• ooohhh... that outfit is so pretty, like how you put the pinks together

Peer Persuasion

• cant believe i did this lol! so... should i go for this look in real life everyone?? lmao.
• ohh i simply adore your style ! good job ! :)
• You wear this dress uniquely!
• i wish i could be your size
• Very sporty and fun. I love the colors you mix and match together. What a wonderful fun and entertaining sight this is.

What these excerpts fail to show is that people are talking about a visual representation of themselves or others wearing a virtual outfit. All store owners know first-hand that customers can really turn a whole store upside down by the end of every single business day. The brick-and-mortar shopping experience does not only incur expensive costs of maintenance but the salability of inventory items is quickly reduced as well. Getting to know what you want to buy before going to the store can really help store owners as well as shoppers.