Fashion retailer Guess is using digital twin technology from California-based Matterport to increase productivity and reduce travel costs.

The company has seen a doubling of productivity and a thirty per cent decrease in travel costs since employing Matterport on iPads with Bigtincan sales enablement software.

Guess has adopted Matterport digital twins to ensure brand consistency across its stores and create immersive, virtual experiences for its employees, external buyers and wholesale partners. Since 2017, Guess has used Matterport digital twins, or photorealistic digital replicas of stores, to realise a 200 per cent increase in productivity, nearly a third cut in travel costs, and a 95 per cent reduction in departmental paper and printer ink costs.

Additionally, by equipping employees with iPads and the Bigtincan sales enablement software, Guess trained and collaborated remotely with staff, engaged partners and wholesale customers, replacing in person store and showroom visits with virtual experiences.

“Brick-and-mortar retailers still face a lot of uncertainty, but digital twins have enabled us to streamline our operations worldwide and build exciting, virtual experiences that set us up for long-term success,” said Jacklyn De Antunano, project manager at Guess. “Whether we are onboarding new employees or making updates to our store displays, brand consistency is crucial. With Matterport digital twins, merchandising teams at our Los Angeles headquarters can set clear directives for our stores worldwide, while new hires can more easily familiarise themselves with our brand. In addition, creating digital twins of our showrooms helps us provide a seamless, virtual experience for buyers.”

Visual merchandising teams frequently reimagine Guess’ brick-and-mortar experience. To ensure global brand consistency across stores, Guess configures new layouts and displays in a mock store at its corporate headquarters. It captures a digital twin of its sample space with a Matterport camera and then shares it with store managers globally to replicate in-person.

To provide detailed instructions for store teams, each digital twin contains Mattertags – colour-coded, visual tags anchored to a specific product and embedded with audio, video or detailed notes from Guess HQ. Equipped with iPads, store teams can view their Matterport digital twins directly through Bigtincan, the company’s sales enablement platform and central hub for proprietary content and knowledge.

With convenient access to digital twins, retail associates can make merchandising updates on the fly and onboard new employees with 3D visuals that demonstrate brand guidelines and in-store layouts. Using digital twins in this process, Guess saw a 200 per cent increase in productivity in the same amount of time as a typical merchandising directive. Additionally, using digital twins allowed them to reduce team travel by 30 per cent through remote collaboration and eliminate the typically manual process of printing and shipping materials directly to stores, resulting in a 95 per cent reduction in departmental paper and printer ink costs.

To liaise with buyers and wholesale partners, Guess relies on showrooms to market new products and collections. It used Matterport digital twins in place of in-person showroom visits to create an immersive, virtual experience for buyers. With digital twins, it can remotely share new collections and convey detailed product information, enabling buyers to view a garment from any angle, zoom in for closer inspection, and make direct purchases.

Since adopting digital twins, Guess has doubled its number of showroom appointments and significantly reduced the air travel previously required for its staff and wholesale customers.

“The retail landscape has shifted, and Matterport digital twins are helping traditional, brick-and-mortar retailers innovate to connect virtually with internal and external stakeholders,” said Stephanie Lin, senior director at Matterport. “Guess demonstrates the multiple use cases for digital twins across the retail industry. From creating a consistent brand experience at the store level to powering new, remote experiences for buyers, Guess has leveraged Matterport to unlock a truly omnichannel experience.”

Matterport’s spatial data platform turns buildings into data to make nearly every space more valuable and accessible. Millions of buildings in more than 177 countries have been transformed into immersive Matterport digital twins to improve every part of the building lifecycle from planning, construction and operations to documentation, appraisal and marketing.

Established in 1981, Guess began as a jeans company and has since grown into a global lifestyle brand. It designs, markets, distributes and licenses a lifestyle collection of contemporary apparel, denim, handbags, watches, eyewear, footwear and other related consumer products. Its products are distributed through branded stores as well as department and specialty stores around the world. As of January 2022, the company directly operated 1068 retail stores in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The company’s partners and distributors operated 563 additional retail stores worldwide.