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Browsing for clothing online is the most preferred and convenient way of shopping today. It is often hard to picture how a pair of jeans will look like on with no one wearing them. Now, there is a solution. Fits.me 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, writes LETA.

This is accomplished by using robotic mannequins with artificial muscles that can simulate the shape and size of any body type. Created using biorobotics and scientific algorithms based on more than 30,000 3-D human body scans, they are capable of shape shifting into nearly 100,000 different types of body shapes. Fits.me is currently live with its Virtual Fitting Room for men and plans to launch the service for women by the end of 2010.

"Online apparel sales to date have been exceptionally challenging due to the lack of a fitting room. However, it is also the fastest growing eCommerce category and will produce an estimated annual revenue of 31 billion dollars in the US in 2010," stated Heikki Haldre, CEO and co-founder of Fits.me. "Only eight% of clothing is currently sold online, and Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room is the disruptive technology that will enable online apparel retailers to successfully compete with traditional brick-and-mortar clothing shops."

J.L. Haber, Vice President of Programming at Multi Media Productions, added, "The Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room is addressing a unique need within the apparel eCommerce sector. We are excited to have them as a guest on our program."

Fits.me is the virtual fitting room for online clothing retailers that addresses, and solves the single biggest problem for the apparel eCommerce category: the lack of a fitting room. Accomplished through bio-robotic and scientific algorithms, the company uses robotic mannequins that are capable of shape shifting into almost 100,000 different types of body shapes so a consumer can visualize how different sizes and styles of clothing might look on their body type before they purchase. The Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room makes buying clothing online much easier for consumers because they can see the actual fit of a piece of clothing based on their own unique measurements – just like in the real-life fitting room. The biorobotics "visual size chart" is also capable of increasing sales and reducing costly returns for online clothing retailers.

The core technology behind Fits.me was developed in large part by research partners: Tartu University – Laboratory of Intelligent Materials and Systems (Estonia), Tallinn Technical University – Center of Biorobotics (Estonia), and Human Solutions GmbH, a leading provider of anthropometrical data (Germany).

Founded in 2009 and based in Estonia and London, Fits.me is a privately held company backed by the Estonian Development Fund and Enterprise Estonia.