Fashion goes mobile: Find the right outfit on your phone

Marianne Wee-Slater

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Singapore — It’s not as if we need more reasons to stay glued to our smartphones, but an increasing number of fashion and beauty brands are creating mobile-phone apps aimed at increasing interaction with their consumers.

According to digital marketing research firm Criteo, mobile commerce accounts for 34 per cent of all e-commerce globally; and it is the fastest growing sector of e-commerce worldwide.

With Japan and South Korea leading the world in mobile commerce (more than 50 per cent of both countries’ e-commerce transactions occuring on smartphones), the race is definitely on for retailers to try and engage digital consumers on their mobile phones to drive mobile-based sales.

The ongoing challenge for both beauty and fashion brands is their consumers’ desire for real-life fittings and test-drives of products such as make-up, skincare and clothes.

Selecting a shade of foundation, fragrance or a pair of jeans is much more personal than choosing a coffee table or gadget, and is not usually a decision that is made casually while surfing on your mobile phone on your way to work.

STEP INSIDE THE AD CAMPAIGN

Over the past couple of years, the big beauty giants have spearheaded this drive developing innovative apps and digital initiatives that aim to help increase consumer interaction, engagement, loyalty and e-commerce sales.

According to a 2015 article in British broadsheet Telegraph, the L’Oreal group had invested 15.7 per cent of its 2014 global media spend in digital. One of its most innovative digital advertising campaigns went ‘live’ recently for the upcoming April launch of Yves Saint Laurent Beaute’s new fragrance Black Opium Nuit Blanche.

Touted as a multi-screen interactive advertising experience, you are invited to sync your mobile phone to your desktop via the fragrance’s microsite (http://www.yslblackopium.com/), which utilises a “second-screen” technology.

Your mobile phone will be transformed into the phone of the campaign’s model-muse Edie Campbell, and you are able to follow her journey through a night of revelry that embodies the spirit of the scent.

BRINGING THE MAKE-UP COUNTER TO YOU

Earlier this year, Korean beauty brand Laneige unveiled its Beauty Mirror app, which allows one to experiment ‘live’ with its range of make-up by virtually super-imposing make-up shades on the user’s face.

The “3D make-up simulation” app, which utilises Augmented Reality technology, can be downloaded onto a smartphone. It is also available in-store as a point-of-purchase tool. The app tracks your movements and expressions in real-time, allowing you to watch as the make-up goes on and observe the end result from all angles.

The app is also loaded with complete looks that are trending at the moment, so you can simply pick your favourite look to try. You can then download the list of make-up products used — from Laneige, obviously — and pop into the store to purchase them. The app can also suggest beauty products that best suit your face (it’s like having a make-up artist in your hand).

The looks can be saved and uploaded directly onto social media platforms such as Facebook.

This app was developed in collaboration with tech company ModiFace, which has announced tie-ups with over 50 beauty brands for its mirror-based Augmented Reality technology.

Others have also jumped on this bandwagon. The L’Oreal Paris Makeup Genius and the Sephora To Go apps are similar to Laneige’s Beauty Mirror, and both feature “Shop Now” e-commerce functionalities that put forth the apps’ mission of converting this fun interactivity into hard sales.

BUILDING A FASHION COMMUNITY

While beauty brands have been focussing on bringing the interactive retail experience to the mobile user, fashion brands have been busy exploring another avenue of engaging the mobile sartorial shopper — community building.

Recognising the fact that shopping for clothes online distinctly lacks the glamour, social aspect and pleasure of browsing through the racks at the shops with shopping partners, some forward-looking fashion brands and e-tailers have put forth mobile apps that go beyond plain old e-commerce to actually bring the social aspect into online clothes shopping.

One of the pioneering brands to launch innovative mobile apps is Japanese retailer Uniqlo. Its app, which was launched four years ago, features an app-within-the-app concept, which consists of mini apps that aim to make your life easier and more fun.

Apart from the features that showcase the latest news and offers from the brand, there are also handy Life Tools. These include the Uniqlo Wake Up, which plays a custom song that tells you the weather, hour and day of the week — a voice also sings the temperature, conditions and time (although you can turn this feature off). The Uniqlo HairDo and Uniqlooks apps, meanwhile, are meant to help envelope you in the brand’s universe and community.

Luxury e-tailer Net-A-Porter also launched its Net Set app in May last year. Developed specifically for the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, the app consolidates and expands on its enviably rich magazine-like online content by bringing in a social element.

Users of the app can compile their favourite looks into their Net Set profiles, and acquire admirers the way an Instagram profile acquires followers. Users can also follow a Style Council of 15 globe-trotting fashionistas (including British model Poppy Delevingne) for fashion inspiration, or upload pictures of an outfit you’ve spotted on the street for similar recommendations on the site. Naturally, everything that you see on the app is available for direct purchase from the e-commerce site.

“We’re the first luxury retailer to launch a social network ... There’s a new generation of mobile-only, mobile-native shoppers,” said Natalie Massenet in an interview with Forbes last year (before her departure from the brand that she had founded in 2000). “This is part of future-proofing Net-A-Porter.”

As for the future of e-commerce, it looks to be going mobile — and fast.