The biggest challenge for the e-commerce apparel category is the lack of a fitting room that allows online shoppers to “try before they buy”.

Fits.me, the innovative biorobotics and virtual fitting room company for e-commerce clothing retailers and shoppers alike, announced last week the official launch of the world’s first virtual fitting room for online clothing retailers in partnership with Hawes & Curtis, the leading UK specialsed business and luxury shirt retailer.

Fits.me solves this challenge, and aims to reduce apparel returns and increase sales by allowing online shoppers to see clothes on a robotic mannequin with the exact dimensions of the buyer’s body via a Virtual Fitting Room. It accomplishes this by using robotic mannequins with artificial muscles that can simulate the shape and size of any body type. The robotic mannequins were created using biorobotics and scientific algorithms based on more than 30,000 3-D human body scans, and are capable of shape shifting into nearly 100,000 different types of body shapes.

Still an early platform for this technology, there is still some room for improvement, but it’s a step into the future of e-commerce improvements at least.