To come up with creative solutions that meet customer needs, a useful approach is to start to look at combining the best of online shopping and instore, hands on shipping.
Stores like Sephora have been testing and implementing solutions to do this over the last few years. Technology such as clerks roaming the aisles with tablets to help answer questions or check customers out, and price-checking kiosks have been one step, says Dan Tynan in an article for BizTech.
By testing out technology in their Innovation Lab, Sephora have started introducing features instore such as:
- The Beauty Workshop – A digital workstation where customers can take group classes from an instructor
- A touchscreen kiosk offering a service called Color IQ – which helps customers find the right make up for their skin tones
- A kiosk offering a service called Skincare IQ which helps customer find the right treatments for their skin conditions such as puffy eyes or dry lips.
- Another Kiosk to help you pick a fragrance called Fragrance IQ – which takes the customer through a few questions, offering up a fragrance they can sniff there and then, and email them choices.
On the way are new technologies such as ‘Virtual Artist’, an augmented reality app that uses a tablet or smartphone webcam to capture a shopper’s face in real time, then “apply” a shopper’s choice of more than 3,000 lipstick shades.
The brand’s approach is to introduce technology only when it makes sense, rather than just for the ‘cool’ factor.
To read more, visit: http://www.biztechmagazine.com/article/2016/06/sephora-neiman-marcus-turn-store-technology-enhance-retail-experience
