Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept for the business?
Shivang Desai : E-commerce returns cost only the US economy $428 Billion in lost sales in 2020. Globally, this loss is worth over a trillion dollars annually. 30%-50% on average of all apparel items bought online are returned which end up going to discount stores or are destroyed. This has a huge impact on the environment.
My cofounder, Chandralika, and I both realized just how much wastage and losses businesses were incurring because people like us couldn’t decide what clothing would work best for us to purchase. We ourselves returned a lot of products we bought online because the information conveyed to us was either incorrect or inaccurate.
This set the stage for our entry into the fashion industry and we sought to invent ways of tackling these problems we faced ourselves, and millions of other shoppers face every day when shopping online.
Great Companies: What are the various services provided by Bigthinx
Shivang Desai : Bigthinx's LYFSIZE AI software carries out a 3D body scan using only two photos from a smartphone and calculates 44 precise body measurements and body composition ratios with over 98% accuracy. These measurements replace the need to visit a tailor to get measured in person for made-to-measure clothing. They also enable us to match any shopper to their size in any clothing brand, anywhere in the world.
Bigthinx’s LYFLIKE software goes a few steps further and uses a selfie of one’s face in addition to the body pictures to create a lifelike 3D virtual avatar that looks and measures exactly like the user. LYFLIKE also uses an automated AI based fashion digitalization pipeline which automatically recreates 3D digital clothing from normal photos to show how it would look, fit and drape as if in reality.
In addition, our other services include digital showrooms and fashion shows for retail, as well as body scanning and fitness tracking for wellness.
Bigthinx's products are used by the world's largest retailers as well as by independent designers and fashion brands alike to increase business productivity.
Our software has driven the following business benefits for our customers across the globe:
● 70% reduction in e-commerce returns
● 20% average increase in order values
● 250% greater sales conversions
● Increased engagement and brand loyalty
Great Companies: What makes Bigthinx different from hundreds of other fashion-tech companies?
Shivang Desai : There are two big differentiators - our technology and our product suite. Our technology is faster, cheaper and more precise than comparable solutions in the market. Furthermore, a full service product suite for fashion retail means that fashion brands and retailers can get several deep-tech products, which are crucial to their online businesses, in one place. Rather than having to work with several different technology providers, they can work with just Bigthinx to provide their consumers with game-changing tech at a price point that is impossible to ignore.
The proof is in our numerous recent achievements:
Bigthinx cofounder, Chandralika Hazarika, was awarded the Accenture Ventures Women in Tech, 2021.
Selected by CogX 2021 as one of the two top companies for the "Best AI product in Fashion"
Selected by Samsung Next (Berlin) as one of the leading companies in the avatar synthesis space (alongside companies like Unity and Epic Games)
Bigthinx awarded for the "Best use of AI in fashion" by Awards.ai London for the two consecutive years in 2019-20 and 2020-21.
Bigthinx won the NASSCOM NIPP Retail-tech challenge 2021
Bigthinx won the award for "Best Innovation in Luxury Fashion" at The Mark Challenge, Monaco
Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?
Shivang Desai: Currently, the biggest challenge is educating the fashion industry about technology and how much it can benefit their businesses. Fashion has been a traditionally conservative industry but the pandemic has created a sea change. Fashion businesses are going digital, fast. But they are still largely unaware of the latest in technology and the business benefits that it can bring.
Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Bigthinx?
Shivang Desai: We are now expanding our products to benefit not only the retail side of the fashion industry but also the whole supply chain, from design to manufacturing and even distribution. The goal is to help the fashion industry become more sustainable and more profitable.
At the same time, we are taking our technology into the metaverse with forays into fashion and avatars for gaming, virtual interactions, and more.
Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Shivang Desai: Rather than chasing investment, focus on creating immense value for your customers. And that's much harder than you think it's going to be. But when you are successfully able to do that, investors will chase you.