Startup Stories Q&A: Simon Iddon, Founder and CEO, be Retail Social
RTIH gets the lowdown on be Retail Social, a British startup that has developed a virtual fitting room and try on platform pitched at fashion and sportswear brands.
RTIH: Tell us about be Retail Social
SI: be Retail Social is for fashion and sportswear retailers that want to grow their business by offering customers more choice and control through digital innovation.
We provide a dynamically engaging, interactive and hyper-personalised virtual fitting room and virtual try on platform.
be Retail Social aims to set itself apart by rehumanising the retail experience, complete with social sharing and feedback from friends and communities, providing a customer first approach that delivers more engagement and more spend, more often.
RTIH: What was the inspiration behind setting the company up?
SI: I first came up with the concept during 2018 and largely it comes from my experience leading innovation, consumer digital and back-end systems within various consumer facing brands.
I was, for many years, a FTSE 250 Group CIO in the hospitality sector and have had similar roles with other international and early-stage businesses.
be Retail Social approached from the angle of understanding both the customer’s and the sector’s problems and addressing key missed opportunities around an enhanced customer experience for the benefit of both consumer and retailer.
Whereas retail is ahead of other sectors when it comes to supply chain and logistics, certainly hospitality has been further ahead in consumer digital, and there is so much more than can be done – and this is what we are addressing.
RTIH: What has been the industry reaction so far?
SI: Throughout our R&D we worked with international fashion and sportswear retailers, both large and small, and they all appreciated both the gaps we were targeting and saw material value in what we were looking to deliver.
In fact, one global sportwear brand called it a “quantum leap for the sector” and another said, “this will be a seismic change for shopping”, which is of course encouraging to hear.
Listening, sharing and feedback are so important to ensure we are properly solving the key issues, and not just seen as ‘another tech business’.
We then worked with a boutique fashion retailer in Brighton that has helped us hone our processes. They provided us with insights from ‘the coal face’ which led to us making some platform improvements.
We recently showed the platform to some household-name brands, and they have said they want to go forward with projects.
RTIH: What has been your biggest challenge/setback?
SI: We are fortunate to have not had any real setbacks so far but there have been plenty of challenges, nothing unsurmountable, but there was a lot to do.
One of the bigger challenges was getting the right balance of quality in the underlying ‘model and garment’ content in terms of realism as well as meeting the retailer’s quality assurance process.
Our platform can provide fantastically detailed models of people and clothes, but as we have moving dynamic content, file size and mobile bandwidth is a factor as not everyone has the latest whizzy 5G mobile, but we have this pretty much sorted now so it’s available to all.
RTIH: What is the biggest challenge facing the omnichannel retail space right now?
SI: Fewer retailers than we think have true omnichannel capability.
It’s more multi-channel as a lot is still not as joined up as it should be. In my view it’s about making the customer’s journey a seamless one irrespective of what channel they are using.
Several of our platform accelerator modules address this, and we also shared our blog recently that added my thoughts about the metaverse into this discussion.
I am now thinking that ‘metachannel’ is perhaps the way we should be thinking about the customer’s experience - existing within and seamlessly integrating between physical, 3D, virtual and social.
Of course, the more digitally pioneering brands are looking to embrace this sooner than others – but walk to sprint isn’t always a good move.
RTIH: What can we expect to see from you over the next 12 months?
SI: It’s an exciting period for us and if everything continues to go as expected you’ll see us posting the results of various pilot projects with some instantly recognisable brands.
The latest changes on our platform continue to push boundaries while addressing real needs, not just creating tech for the sake of it.
We are helping our experimental partners utilise the platform to set themselves apart from their competition.
