A futuristic looking form of advertising is becoming increasingly common in the hopes of appealing to shoppers.
A new form of retail augmented reality marketing is starting to pop up here and there across the United States. While it remains very limited in its use, a growing number of retailers are catching on. The appeal to shoppers is quite evident.
The idea is to use this high tech design and sleek style to draw customers into brick and mortar stores.
Among the companies using retail augmented reality technology to market to consumers is Reformation. The sustainable fashion brand has five locations across the U.S. including one in San Francisco’s Mission district. The shop is quite unique to see in that it displays only one size of each clothing item and there isn’t a checkout counter. What it does have is a large number of touch screens.
Reformation’s strategy in using retail augmented reality is to “disrupt” the more traditional experience.
This, according to the vice president of retail at Reformation, Bree Richmond. She explained that the company’s CEO Yael Aflalo has been working for two years on a new way to shake up the traditional retail atmosphere. “We wanted to do something very different in the retail space. Something that no one has done before,” said Richmond.
Reformation customers can check out the display item as they would in other retail clothing store. However, that is where the traditional experience comes to an end. If they are interested in that particular product, they use the touchscreens that can be found all around the stores as well as in fitting rooms. They can use those screens to select the item’s size and color then simply head to a fitting room.
A Reformation employee receives the notice that a piece has been selected and selects the item in the correct size and color from the store’s basement. The employee then brings the item up to the customer in the fitting room so it can be tried on.
The wait time for any item selected using the retail augmented reality technology is typically two minutes or less. The fitting rooms also have touch screens through which shoppers can request additional sizes or colors, or they can opt for an entirely different item; all of which will be brought directly to them.