With all the talk surrounding multichannel retailing, it was only a matter of time before etailers started dipping a toe in the world of bricks and mortar. The last couple of weeks have brought news of three of the biggest online names making small steps into offline, all in different ways.
Amazon’s lockers – the UK trial of which was exclusively revealed by Retail Week – will help shoppers solve the perennial problem of waiting at home for a delivery or risking the office postal system.
Customers can order as normal and elect to pick up their products from lockers, unlocking them using a code that is emailed to them. The company is preparing for the launch and has installed lockers in the One New Change shopping centre in the City of London, which is also hosting Ocado’s shopping wall. This allows customers to scan bar codes underneath pictures of products on a screen using their mobile phones, and buy products there and then. Finally, Net-a-Porter ran a pop-up augmented reality window shop on September 8th for Vogue’s Fashion Night Out event. Using image recognition technology embedded in a smart phone app, mobile phones could be used to scan the image of a pair of shoes, for instance, and take users to videos, competitions and of course the online store.
These etailers have innovation at their core, so it will be interesting to see how their interaction with the offline world develops. As use of smart phones becomes more widespread it’s getting easier to come up with exciting new offers – and it’s not just bricks and mortar retailers who can benefit.
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