The Ideas In Retail Innovation Will Change The Way You Shop

There are many of the ideas below can be linked by their desire to make the shopping experience more enjoyable, be it through speeding up payments and helping customers skip queues, providing a uniquely quiet and relaxed retail environment, or gamifying shopping by enabling customers to pay with points earned exercising. There are plenty of factors that can make shopping an unpleasant experience, and any effort to counteract that will always be appreciated. This sense that these innovations are serving a real purpose which it enabling customers to see how popular clothes are on Facebook for social validation, or involving the customer in the selection of what products are available in-store. Below is some lessons and inspiration here for innovators in every industry:

1. Jeans store uses QR codes to make shopping easier for men

 

Shopping can be a trial for some, and it’s a widely held belief that many men can find it more of a chore than women. Aiming to improve the experience for men, Hointer added QR codes to their jeans so that customers could simply scan the code in order to get their desired size delivered to a changing room ready for them to try on. This streamlined process saves customers from having to wade through piles of clothing to find their size, ultimately speeding up a shopping trip for those who would rather be elsewhere.

2. Facebook app lets runners pay with kilometers completed

We’ve seen apps that reward their users with motivational phrases when they exercise. However, Nike Mexico took this a step further with their Facebook auction, Subasta de Kilometros, which allowed runners to accrue points for every kilometre run and then use these points to bid on Nike-branded running gear in the auction. Through this app Nike Mexico cannily provided an extra incentive for runners to keep fit, at the same time as promoting their products. 

3. In China, virtual reality stores turn open spaces into a supermarket

With the aim of providing a more interactive shopping experience, Yihaodian in China developed augmented reality stores that can only be accessed in certain public locations. When customers point their smartphone in the right direction at locations such as public squares, a virtual store is displayed where items sit on shelves or hang from the walls. This app provides a simulation of a physical retail store so shoppers can feel more immersed in their online shopping trip. 

4. Brazilian fashion retailer displays Facebook ‘likes’ for items in its real-world stores

We’ve seen those involved in retail adjust impressively to the increasingly online world we live in. C&A provided a good example of how the real world and the online can converge to create a modern shopping experience. By displaying Facebook ‘likes’ on small screens embedded in articles’ hangers, the retailers showed the increasing tally of ‘likes’ different items of clothing were receiving from web users. The hope was that approval from the online community would encourage shoppers to purchase an item of clothing.

 

5. Machine accepts cards for tips

Increasingly, cash is being passed up in favor of card payments. This makes for a lighter purse, but can also mean that cash rituals such as tipping can be left by the way side. DipJar aims to remedy this by offering an easy way for cardholders to tip, in the form of a machine placed near the till that customers need only place their card into quickly for a USD 1 tip to be taken. If they wish to give more they can just place the card the desired amount of times. A simple innovation for the retail industry that encourages generosity in a world where plastic is paramount.

6. In New York, bedroom furniture store lets customers nap for free

Making customers feel comfortable can only increase the likelihood that they will make both a purchase and a return visit. COCO-MAT took this truism quite literally, and offered a try-before-you-buy approach for their beds. Visitors to the store were allowed to nap in the beds for a couple of hours and received a free glass of orange juice, but were not obliged to buy after trying. The idea behind the campaign was to spread word of the bed store and consequently increase footfall. 

10. At Brazilian retailer, RFID tracks merchandise from manufacturer to customer

Shop assistants must dread the words “Have you got any more of…?” seeing as it often prompts a trawl through the back room to see if an item is available in a particular size. But Brazilian Memove’s RFID stock tracking technology could consign such headaches to the past thanks to tags stitched into the clothing that monitor all items from manufacturing to the moment the customer walks out of the shop with the purchased product. Keeping track of the stock supply chain can be made much simpler through the use of technology, and Memove provides a fine example.