Page 19 - Forbes - Asia (September 2018)
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FORBES ASIA
PULSION
Magic Mirror
A Chinese virtual tting room startup boosts retailers’ revenues with big data.
BY JANE HO
t a busy mall in Shang- “An experimental pilot,”
hai, shoppers are lining up as Tu calls it, the store was
to create their own per- opened to test and optimize
sonal avatars to try on new Pulsion’s system. he com-
Aclothes. he store, named pany’s virtual itting rooms
Moda Polso (Italian for “fashion pulse”), are an extension of its gar-
gives customers the chance to see them- ment store management
selves wearing diferent garments without system, which promises to
the hassle of actually changing clothes, al- predict consumer demand
lowing them to make their choices more and allow retailers to in-
quickly and easily. crease sales while reducing
Moda Polso opened in May as a pilot inventory costs.
project of Shanghai’s “new retail” appar- Pulsion’s system does
Pulsion’s fitting library aims to change the retail experience.
el company, Pulsion. New retail, a term this by analyzing shoppers’
coined by Alibaba’s Jack Ma, refers to the buying patterns, enabling retailers to renew Zhongsheng in 2013 under the name Hao-
integration of online and oline resourc- their product lineup in a more timely maiyi, or “easy-buy clothes.” Huang saw
es in order to revolutionize the retail ex- fashion—idle items typically account for an opportunity in virtual itting rooms.
perience. “[Virtual itting rooms] connect roughly half of an oline store’s portfolio. “he sector was gaining popularity at the
consumers, products and stores, providing he system can also predict what is like- time, but no one was able to provide [good
a novel and convenient shopping experi- ly to sell in the future, allowing brands to enough] technology with low cost,” the
ence,” says Zhang Tianbing, a retail analyst make adjustments to reduce excess inven- 33-year-old founder and chairman recalls.
at Deloitte China. tory. “Such prepurchase behavioral data he company spent over three years
Revolutionary or not, the Moda Polso is almost impossible for traditional brick- and more than $10 million investing in re-
outlet certainly doesn’t look like a typical and-mortar stores to collect,” Tu says. search before launching its irst sotware in
apparel store. A third of its space is dedi- According to Pulsion’s research on 40 2016. he same year, Pulsion began pro-
cated to displaying merchandise and ten China-listed apparel irms, their total in- viding sotware services to Alibaba’s Tmall
touchscreens, including one called the ventory value of $4.5 billion is seven times online stores for Chinese brands, such as
“magic mirror” because of its large size. greater than their combined annual earn- Ochirly, a leading women’s garment label,
he rest of the area is reserved for chang- ings. “he apparel sector could be as lu- but the partnership to provide its virtual
ing rooms and a storage room accommo- crative as real estate if you bet on the right try-on service to Tmall lasted only a year.
dating 3,000 pieces of roughly 1,000 de- portfolio,” says Tu. “While our sotware helped consumers
signs. “A typical store is able to at least Once consumers create a proile linked discover what it them better, it resulted in
quadruple its portfolio using Pulsion’s sys- to their cellphone number or WeChat ac- a drop in those stores’ sales, as most people
tem,” says Tu Zhenghui, the company’s count, Pulsion’s system can keep in touch don’t look as good as models,” says Tu.
32-year-old chief executive. It can also be with them ater they’ve let the store to rec- Renaming itself ater ending the vir-
used to save space, reducing rental expens- ommend new arrivals. When they revis- tual try-on partnership, Pulsion changed
es, a major cost for oline stores. it the store and log onto one of the devic- course to target oline businesses. And
Working with the world’s largest data- es, they’ll see customized product displays Huang sought help from Tu, his old college
base of Asian women’s body types (6 mil- based on their behavioral data. friend and former partner in a food deliv-
lion), the sotware uses just 20 parameters Pulsion’s revenue is derived from keep- ery startup. Tu admits that the virtual it-
to generate more accurate 3-D models that ing sales commissions in the low single ting room segment, although growing fast,
showcase how clothing drapes on a per- digits. It expects to generate $550,000 in is unlikely to last long on its own. Many of-
son’s body. As impressive as that sounds, monthly revenue by the end of this year ine stores are using the technology as a
Pulsion’s new store, which carries a dozen and $20 million in 2019. gimmick to attract customers, he says.
Chinese brands, is likely to be its only one. Pulsion was initially set up by Huang A itting result? F
SEPTEMBER 2018 FORBES ASIA | 17
