Best of Basic, which sells women's trousers and operates stores in Gothenburg, Helsingborg and Stockholm as well as e-commerce, is now launching the digital service Pants Guide. The tool is built around a large language model that has been trained on the founder Sophia Wilhelm's own fit descriptions and product knowledge. The service meets the customer by asking a number of questions and then recommending the right trouser model from the range.
According to Sophia Wilhelm, the company, which has been running e-commerce since 2008, has long had the challenge of conveying the store staff's fit expertise to online customers.
I and my skilled staff can talk to every customer who comes into the store, but our online customers can now get a version of me that they would not otherwise have access to, says Sophia Wilhelm.
It sounds strange until you try it. Then it feels natural.
Internal Development
The technology behind Pants Guide has been developed internally and deployed on the clothing chain's existing web platform, without the involvement of external developers or investors. The advice is text-based but uses video recordings from actual sales situations to recreate Sophia Wilhelm's specific language and the atmosphere of a store interaction.
The method is based on a diagnostic approach that starts from how trousers behave on the body, instead of just matching the customer's measurements to a table. The tool asks the customer where the trousers gape, where they pull or where fabric gathers.
"The Fault Lies with the Garment"
Sophia Wilhelm emphasizes that this philosophy is the tool's main strength:
I think the sharpest uniqueness core is still the diagnostic philosophy, she explains, adding that the tool always assumes that the fault lies with the garment, not the customer's body.
The uniqueness of Pants Guide is that it digitizes a specific person's tactile expertise in fit, with her human perspective intact — not that it is an AI tool. That is the difference between "a store that has acquired AI" and "a pants specialist who has cloned its own advice".
In addition to the new advisory tool, the company is also working on a technical solution for returns management. At the same time, the company announces that the market situation is beginning to brighten after a period of economic challenges.