Information Technology Reference
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an enhanced shopping experience. Prada is already experimenting with
this technology in some of its US stores.
3. Body scanning as an aid for product trials. Again, this could be a sup-
port for the dressing room dilemma where the shopper will not need
to physically try on the pieces selected but will be able to view them
against her body replica on a screen. The shopper could scan their body,
which would be transformed into a 3-D virtual model and used to try on
products like apparel, bags, shoes, jewelry and so on in various colors
and sizes without tasking themselves physically. This feature could also
enable shoppers to drag and drop pieces from the collection to their rep-
lica 3-D virtual body on the screen to visualize how they would look
wearing the clothes. Needless to say, this could be a tool for indulging in
personal styling and product interactivity. It could also enable the shop-
per to view a wider range of the collections within the store that their
physical eye may have missed. It would also be an excellent tool for
suggesting matching and complementary products in a visual format that
the client may not have thought of. The screen could also be of varying
sizes including a life-size where the 3-D virtual model could appear in
the real body dimensions, replicating the life-size mirror.
4. Personal avatars of virtual models that may be created by clients and
stored in programs installed in store cabin displays with an account login
and password to be retrieved each time the shopper returns to that store or
any of the brand's stores around the world. The avatars could be used to
try on products and could also act as a complement to the physical prod-
uct trials. In this case, the product code could be entered and the screen
could display the variety of colours and sizes in which the product exists
and all of these could be tried on the avatar and viewed on the screen.
5. Social and collective shopping, whereby a shopper is able to share the
images and details of their selected pieces through a touch-screen that
gives shoppers the option of inviting others to be a part of the shopping
experience. In this case, instead of the standard practice of taking pictures
of items with mobile phones and sending them to friends through MMS,
the shopper will simply need to click on a web link to log on to a website
where friends could be invited to view him or her shopping directly and
may post their comments. This feature will not only increase purchase
probability but will also make the shopping experience fun and inclusive
by allowing people to communicate as though they were shopping together.
Some luxury retailers like Japan's Mitsukoshi and the US's Bloomingdale's
are already trying out facets of social shopping in their stores.
6. Sales ambassador alert through installed call buttons located at specific
points in different sections of the store. This would enable shoppers to
press a button and call the attention of a sales representative if needed.
This is particularly essential for large stores and will help to prevent sit-
uations where clients are standing around the store waiting to be served
