South Korean startup uses AI to sell perfectly fitted shoes

Perfitt is a South Korean startup that uses AI to help customers buy shoes of the right size online.

Image credit: Ubergizmo

Launched in 2019, the platform was created to lower the number of footwear returns. A 2017 study by Body Labs found that 57% of shoes bought are returned every year because they don’t fit. This is largely because shoe sizes vary greatly across brands and models, making online shoe shopping a pain point for many customers.

Many consumers have resorted to “bracketing,” or ordering multiple shoe sizes and returning those that don’t fit, which places a great cost burden on vendors. Perfitt promises to solve this issue and make the buying experience hassle-free.

Users simply need to place their feet on top of a paper kit sent by the company and take a picture via the Perfitt app, which captures their foot length, the height of the top of the foot, and the width of the ball of the foot.

Through AI and machine learning, Perfitt recommends the best-fitting sizes for users based on data gathered on 140,000 shoe sizes and 20,000 shoes. Household shoe brands such as New Balance and Adidas are available on the app.

As of 2020, Perfitt said that 90.2% of users were satisfied with shoe sizes recommended by the company.

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The company received US$2.26 million in their 2020 series A funding round, with Sparklabs, Thoughts Become Things, Capstone Partners, and Korea Credit Guarantee Fund participating. This brings Perfitt’s total funding to US$2.71 million, as per Korea IT News.

Perfitt was founded in 2015 by Steena Lee, who previously worked at IBM and Concentrix.