The Augmented Reality Shoe Store

For a little over ten years garment, shoe and eye glass companies have experimented with an online and in store augmented reality (AR) shopping experience.  The technology was limited to revealing how someone would look wearing a product.  Nike has recently refined its AR capabilities with their new shoe sizing app. 

Shopping for shoes at the store gives us the opportunity to try them on before buying.  If the shoe fits and is comfortable, we make the purchase.  However, we still may have bought the wrong shoe for the shape and particular bone structure of our feet.  It is usually after developing problems like calluses, blisters, corns, bunions, and plantar fasciitis that we realize the shoes were not right for our feet.  The Nike Fit app promises to eliminate purchasing the wrong pair of shoes. 

Nike says that three out of five people are wearing the wrong shoe for their feet.  In store sizing instruments often give inaccurate measurements.  The shoe fit app according to Nike, “offers a new scanning solution that uses a proprietary combination of computer vision, data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence and recommended algorithms.”   This is done through the consumer using their smartphone camera.  Once data is recorded, the app will provide the customer with the best shore for their feet and correct size.  Foot information will be stored for later purchases. 

Nike and other retailers will most likely use consumer size data to notify them every time a product is released that matches the bone structure of their feet.  Augmented reality technology will only improve in the coming years. 

Nike. (2019.). What is Nike Fit? Retrieved from https://news.nike.com/news/nike-fit-digital-foot-measurement-tool

TextilWirtschaft. (2019, May 09). Nike Fit. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=53&v=LMXc_1qCa8E

Wehner, M. (2019, May 11). Nike’s app will use augmented reality to determine your shoe size. Retrieved from https://bgr.com/2019/05/11/nike-fit-app-shoe-size/