EXCLUSIVE: French Toast develops AI online sizing tool
An online specialty retailer of school uniforms is increasing conversions and reducing returns with a custom artificial intelligence-based sizing solution.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Laura Kim, senior director of e-commerce and merchandising at French Toast, to gain insight into how the online provider of uniforms and other schoolwear utilizes in-house-designed AI technology to help ensure online apparel purchases correctly fit each individual customer.
What issues was French Toast facing with sizing?
At French Toast, we constantly look for ways to improve customer experience, and finding the right fit when shopping online is a challenge everyone experiences. We recognized that parents were looking for a simpler way to find the right size for their child without complicated size charts and measuring tapes.
In addition, we wanted to eliminate the hassle of fit-related returns. We partnered with AI technology provider Bold Metrics to design the custom Find Your Fit solution to reduce the struggles customers were having with finding the right sizes for their children. Our goal was to provide an accurate and easy solution while improving the overall shopping experience at French Toast.
How did you develop Find Your Fit?
We spent time researching and evaluating existing fit solutions in the market and found there wasn’t a customized solution available. Most existing children’s fit tools don’t account for the fact that different garments have different fits and instead rely on comparing size information from other brands.
Bold Metrics partnered with us to build this personalized approach to use AI to help calculate the recommended fit based on our customer’s unique inputs. We spent nearly two years on the development which included a year of data collection to build the model with Bold Metrics’ advanced AI and machine learning algorithms.
After nearly two years of development, we launched Find Your Fit in February 2023.
How does Find Your Fit work?
The customer inputs a few specific details about their child (age, height, weight, shoe size) and in a few seconds the recommended size for that garment will appear on the product page. Those inputs are stored so recommended sizes will be shown throughout the customer’s visit for polos, pants, sweaters, and more.
What have the results been?
We’ve received a lot of positive feedback from customers who have used the tool in the past year. The level of accuracy has brought even more confidence to our families as they shop our site, which translates to increased conversions. We’re also seeing a reduction in fit-related returns. Find Your Fit is making a meaningful impact for French Toast customers.
Are there any future plans for online sizing?
This year we launched a new pathway for customers to use Find Your Fit through our French Toast size & fit pages. Previously, a customer found the tool while browsing for a specific product, but now a customer can input their child’s information and we’ll save that data for the customer during their shopping visit so any product they shop will have a recommended size based on those inputs.
French Toast will continue to evolve and innovate based on customer feedback and our commitment to improving the customer experience on our site.
[Read more: How retailers can get more personal with customers – using AI]