At Shoptalk Europe 2026, Sizing and Fit Surface as a Foundational Question for AI-Ready Fashion

BARCELONA, June 12, 2026 - SAIZ, the partner for holistic sizing and fit solutions in fashion, attended Shoptalk Europe at Fira Gran Via from 9 to 11 June, joining retailers, brands and technology leaders across three days of the event. The central theme was the role of AI and human ingenuity in retail, and the case that brands need to adopt automation while keeping the human judgement that holds customer relationships together. Within that, one thread held steady: sizing and fit remain central to how fashion brands serve their customers and getting them right depends on the quality of the data underneath.

That through-line was visible from the main stage. In his keynote on how Zalando navigates Europe's macro shifts, co-CEO David Schröder described the company's evolution from an online retailer into a commerce and technology platform and noted that AI-driven size recommendations have helped Zalando reduce returns by around 8% a year. The figure illustrated a point SAIZ has long argued, which is that sizing and fit are the main growth levers when the data foundations are right.

The connection deepened in the session on building a data-enabled business for AI-readiness, where Carlos Sanchez Altable of McKinsey & Company moderated a discussion with Graeme Smith of Zalando, Fiona Tan of Wayfair and Maximilian Einöder of MediaMarkt Saturn. A recurring idea across the panel was that data should be treated as a product in its own right, with clear ownership and real quality standards. That principle is exactly where SAIZ works. Sizing and fit only become reliable when customer body data and product data are connected through a shared data foundation, rather than living in separate systems that were never built to talk to each other.

Away from the stage, one gap came up repeatedly. Brands know shoppers need better guidance, and most now see that it begins with product data. Far fewer feel ready to act on it. SAIZ heard the same hesitations in conversation after conversation, from "I'm not even sure we have that product data" to "I don't know if those teams would be ready to get involved." The will is there well ahead of the readiness.

The brands making the most progress, SAIZ observed, are the ones whose leadership has given teams a genuine mandate to experiment. Given real permission to act, the people closest to the problem start solving it together rather than waiting for someone else to own it, and the results show up across the whole business.

"Shoptalk Europe confirmed what we hear from brands every week,"

said Fiori Dalipi, Brand Partnerships & Growth Lead at SAIZ.

"The appetite to guide shoppers better is everywhere, and the understanding that this is a data problem is growing fast. The work now is helping teams across an organization connect their product data and their customer data so that sizing and fit can finally be solved on a shared data foundation rather than in isolation."

SAIZ left Barcelona encouraged by the candor of the conversations and the momentum building around data readiness in fashion. The company will continue working with brands across global markets to turn that momentum into infrastructure that lasts.