Some of the best articles from the world of retail and its supporting industries.
Monthly Retail Round-Up - June 2019
Dressipi, the world’s only fashion prediction platform, brings you a round up of the top retail news this June to keep you up to date.
1) ASOS’ Virtual Catwalk
ASOS is constantly rolling out new technology to help achieve better customer engagement. For their latest announcement, reported in Drapers, ASOS has “launched an augmented reality feature on its app, called Virtual Catwalk”. Partnering with the hologram and AR firm, HoloMe “will give [ASOS] customers a different way to view and experience products before making the decision to buy”.
So how does it work ? Customers can point their smartphone at a flat surface, click the AR button on the product page of 100 new-in ASOS Design products, and models will appear as though they were in front of them, wearing the product. In March last year, Zara also experimented with AR having models shown through a smartphone while walking around in-store, in window displays and popping up on packages of online purchases.
We’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with it at Dressipi HQ and can confirm it’s pretty good quality! Have a play around with it yourself here.
2) The Trending Store
From the 3rd to 7th July, Westfield London is launching a pop-up selling clothes which are trending online. Reported in the Evening Standard, The Trending Store is “an AI-powered initiative to entice online shoppers in store while raising money for Save the Children”.
In partnership with Nextatlas, the machine learning model will track over 400,000 influencers to find out what they are wearing and what is hot that day. Reported in the Evening Standard, “a list of trending items will then be given to a team of Westfield stylists, who’ll hunt out corresponding items (both clothing and accessories) from across the entire shopping centre each morning, ready to drop in the pop-up.”
The Trending Store will stock the top 100 items of men’s and women’s clothing and accessories that are trending online that day, catering for all budgets. Reported in Retail Systems, stylists will also “be on hand to help customers pick out key items to suit their own individual styles”.
3) Small Online Businesses Given a Chance on the High Street
Reported in Retail Systems, “Amazon and Enterprise Nation have announced the launch of Clicks and Mortar - a new programme to help small businesses grow, both in-store and online.”
The programme will give around 100 small online businesses the opportunity to have a presence on the high-street in the form of pop-up stores. These 10 pop-ups will be open for a year, occupied for varying lengths of time and “will explore a new model to help up-and-coming online brands grow their physical presence.”
George MacDonald, Executive Editor, Retail Week, gave his opinion in Retail Week, “For some of the retailers, it makes sense only to have a physical presence at particular times of year, such as seasonal peaks, or to run specific brand-building initiatives.” It also allows online brands to gain recognition and reach customers on the high street that may not have heard of them before.
We hope you enjoyed the round-up. Please feel free to get in touch with any stories you feel would be of interest.
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