Karen Williams

CEO, Savitude, Inc.

Supernova Award Category: 
Marketing Transformation
The Organization: 

Savitude is a fashion technology start-up focused on making clothing that fits and flatters accessible to every individual regardless of body shape. We are committed to this bold vision because we have the talent with the ability to leverage art and science to make it happen. The team has a unique combination of expertise: predictive modeling and fashion, computer vision and machine learning, manufacturing and operations. Savitude founders are serial entrepreneurs with 2 successful exits, 3 issued patents and 4 pending. The CEO's expertise lies in driving innovation from concept and test through implementation and optimizing product development across diverse industries. The time and the technology are right to make these changes in this legacy industry.

 

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The Problem: 

Each year 30% of apparel or $500B of unsold or returned inventory is destroyed or dumped into landfills. A key driver is the over-production of apparel designed based on the hourglass shape, possessed by only 20% of the population. This Assortment Gap comprises a $120B sales opportunity. Brands are now rationalizing assortments to be tighter and more targeted to the consumer. This requires new data and insights to facilitate decision-making.

The Solution: 

Savitude Design Studio is a collection of SaaS modules for best fit and assortment optimization that addresses the fit and design challenges in fashion accounting for 80% of apparel returns. Savitude's patented core technology consists of three modules that augment current product development processes by gathering consumer preferences and delivering them in near real-time to merchandisers and designers along with tools for faster implementation. The data provides intelligence on who wishes to shop with a retailer, information on their body shape and their preferences. This gives a unique view of demand and can be leveraged to optimize both assortment and design, using our technology. Benefits go to the customer, the brand and the environment - reducing waste and increasing sales without adding to SKU count.

The Results: 

When the team discovered that there weren't recommendations for some body shapes in the large scale pilot (5M people), the technology team dug deep for "the error" and found that indeed the assortment had gaps in them. This lead to "what if we could solve for that"? And the game was on!

Metrics: 

Proven results include:

  • Identified a $120B void for underserved consumers
  • Reduced costs and improved time to market (25%), and
  • Net incremental revenue lift of 11% from Savitude Design Studio best-fit technology. Major contributors to this are
    • Greater conversion rates (2.0X) and
    • Increases in average order value (2.5X AOV
  • Additional opportunity for brands and retailers who are seeking consistency in their data (tagging) related to products, eliminating human error 
The Technology: 

Savitude core technology is a computer vision and analytics platform with three modules that can be used together or separately. The foundation is  a proprietary knowledge base matching design details to body shape, and providing analysis, insights and recommendation to merchandisers and designers for optimizing their assortments and collections. The recommendations are all made within the context of the Brand's unique DNA, allowing for trend and inspiration to be included.

Disruptive Factor: 

The design standards in women's fashion have been based on the hourglass body shape for over 70 years. This has been necessary for mass production. The challenge is that designers are only trained on this body shape and a natural bias exists for designing apparel to complement that shape. The reality is that 50% of the shape populations is underserved and when trying on clothing, will find something that they liked on the rack does not fit or flatter them. When in store, it is easy to leave those items behind. When buying online, it results in a lot of returns. Our solution makes it possible for merchandisers and designers to check and adjust as they develop- and, if needed, use our technology to iterate in real time (5 minutes vs. a 12 week design cycle). In this way, the designer creates, gets assessment of each design with respect to body shape coverage and can adjust design details to increase coverages without adding skus. Our technology can also advise on productivity by shape coverage by item, providing merchandisers with new information on where to cull and where to develop product to maximize sell through and minimize waste. Without this technology, the design guidance and assortment optimization based on real data from the brands customers, is not possible.

Shining Moment: 

Savitude first developed a recommendation engine based on body shape and design details. In a large pilot, we demonstrated a lift of 11% net returns. We also learned there was little to no apparel to recommend for some body shapes. As the industry committed to size-based recommendation (now proven insufficient for reducing returns), the team pivoted to develop technology that would address the problem before production, providing data and tools for brands and retailers.

About Savitude, Inc.

Savitude is for fashion brands and retailers who seek to reduce shopper returns and waste while improving sales, and want to provide an assortment that meets the needs of a broader consumer population. Savitude offers a SaaS platform for Best Fit and assortment optimization that addresses the fit and design challenges in fashion accounting for 80% of returns without adding SKUs.