The duo who found a fitting solution

You probably have heard the story of how two people who have known each other well come up with an idea and start a venture. But imagine two people on either side of the globe – one in India, other in the US – who had never met, co-founding a company and signing up big-names in the e-commerce space such as Myntra. The entire process – from idea to customer traction – took less than a year.

Good fit Meet Amit Monga and Durai Balusamy, co-founders of Fitrrati, a fit technology solution provider that helps you find the best size and fit when shopping online for fashion clothing. The two come with enviable e-commerce and technology expertise. Amit had earlier co-founded eSportsBuy.com, a sports and fitness e-commerce portal, which was acquired by Snapdeal in 2012. Durai Balusamy, who is Fitrrati’s CTO, has held technical leadership roles in companies, including Groupon, Yahoo! and Sun Microsystems.

So why did they both want to look at the fitting issue? “Prior to Fitrrati, I worked closely with fashion retailers such as Myntra, Flipkart, Jabong to promote private fashion labels. Wrong fit issues were leading to 15-30 per cent of returns in e-commerce sites,” says Amit. And Durai, when he headed Yahoo! Shopping, too, had realised that sizing issues were affecting consumers’ online retail experience. And, when a common friend introduced the two virtually, they instantly realised that they were a perfect fit.

On the cloud platform The duo started fleshing out the idea in April 2014 and realised that data was the best way to address the issue. They went on to collect data on over 1,000 size charts from over 300 brands and private clothing labels in India over the next four-six months. “Alongside, we worked on our cloud-based technology platform and developed a patent pending solution to make size recommendation for any style and clothing categories, taking into account the buyer’s fit preferences,” explains Durai.

They did a small pilot test with 25 users, each trying out four-five clothing of different brands and product types. Their feedback was compared with results from Fitrrati’s platform. “The fit recommendation made by our solution was accurate 92 per cent of the time,” says Amit.

These results convinced Stykin.com, a women’s fashion brand which also sells through Myntra, to sign up with Fitrrati. The company was experiencing 30-40 per cent returns on its brand, according to Aditya Singh, owner of Stykin.com.

Fitrrati is currently running a live pilot with fashion retailer Myntra. It is also partnering with fashion retailer Yepme and has recently launched this feature on their website.

“Fitrrati’s technology is easy to integrate and simple to use for any shopper,” says Sandeep Sharma, COO and Co-Founder, Yepme.com. Their intelligent fit technology promises to provide a confident purchase experience, feels Sharma.

Finding your fit So how do you find your best fit using Fitrrati? While you are shopping on, say, Myntra app, you will see a Size Help option. When you click on this, you will see a new size recommendation feature and will be asked a few simple questions on your size -either body measurements or details of your favourite clothing from leading brands that you think has been a good fit. You are also asked your fitting preferences (such as body fit or comfortable). With these, the fit-engine will make size recommendations for all the products in that category on the e-tailer’s portal.

“Say, you know a medium-size Puma t-shirt fits you comfortably well. You can enter that as your favourite top wear clothing with fit preference as ‘Comfortable’. This will throw up the accurate size recommendation with fit details for all top wear products (Shirts, Kurtas) on which Fitrrati feature is active,” explains Amit. What if you gained a few kilos? No worries, you can edit your favourite clothing along with your fit preferences anytime and all recommendations will change accordingly.

Fund raise “We are also developing prototype to compute measurements from images using computer vision and image processing techniques,” says Durai.

The company has a customised, subscription-based pricing model with e-tailers.Fitrrati, with a team of five consultants, is self-funded. It plans to raise funds for building team and scaling operations. Fitrrati is looking at integrating with 8-10 e-tailers by August. The scope of the technology is global as they are getting enquiries from clothing e-tailers in the US, Canada, the UK and Dubai, but currently they are catering to the needs of Indian retailers.

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