Amazon plans to use 3-D Body scanners on you

Retail conglomerate intends to monitor customers' changing physiques to sell more clothes

Amazon asked people to take part in their new project to scan your body.

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(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Amazon wants to get to know your body and how it works through scanning technology that will offer an insight into the nuances of your fluctuating weight.

According to the Business Insider, Amazon published an online survey asking people to take part in their new project to scan your body in an effort to measure how much your weight and fitness have changed in the past year.

 “We are interested in understanding how bodies change shape over time,” the survey says.

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Tracking Your Physique

If chosen, participants will need to have their bodies scanned every two weeks for 30 minutes in their New York office, Journal reported.

Amazon recently acquired the New York-based startup Body Labs, and this survey could be part of the company’s new 3D body-scanning unit which was developed in October.

It’s website previously said Body Labs makes a software that captures the body’s shape and motion in three dimensions.

While this could offer an easy answer to how cake and cookies have contributed greatly to their body changes, Amazon is likely gearing up to launch an online system that helps consumers virtually try on clothing… and get a handle on clothing returns.

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Your Privacy Versus Their Profit

“The returns rates are really high. And it’s absolutely not free for the retailer,” says John Haber, chief executive of supply chain consultancy Spend Management Experts.

The Wall Street Journal reports that returns are the highest costs for online retailers. And because consumers have to wait to receive their clothing before trying them on, their homes tend to become their dressing rooms and then they make their returns.

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Still, trying to mesh this body scanning technology will real life bodies proves to be a complicated concept, said Susan Ashdown, who has studied clothing sizing and fit as well as the body scanning technology since 2000.

“It’s much more complicated than anyone imagines,” she said.

You have to factor in, “How you hold your shoulders, the angle of your hips—everything feeds into how well your clothes fit you,” said Ashdown who is also a Cornell University professor.

No to mention,  different types of materials as well as various body shapes, sizes and different postures will need to be considered.

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