It's not unusual to see the latest and greatest fashions prepped up behind a huge
glass pane when strolling by a retail clothing store, but the traditional idea of enticing customers to come in could be replaced by just handling transactions at the glass. Polo Ralph Lauren has unveiled a unique way to shop
in at its stores, allowing customers to complete purchases by interacting with the glass window of the building, and is testing the idea at the flagship location in New York. While we've seen some fairly
obscure ways to
shop, picking up a new outfit by tapping on a huge window may take the cake -- a projector beams 67 inches worth of Ralph Lauren's latest threads onto the store's window, while a "thin touch foil" mounted on the glass powers the touchscreen. Apparently customers can shop around the clock (if you dare wander out on city streets at those odd hours of the night) by just tapping images of the clothing they want and swiping their credit cards on the wall-mounted card reader. The company plans to keep the display up and running through September 10th, after which a decision will be made based on its success (or lack thereof) to either nix the windows shopping experiment or introduce it into more stores. While we're unsure what makes waiting in an outdoor line to purchase items any less annoying than waiting inside, this may be the perfect way to exercise those impulse buying muscles, and hey, at least it gives
window washers some steady work.
[Via
SmartMobs]
posted Aug 10th 2006 5:02AM
watch a video of the interactive window at the New York Ralph Lauren Store here:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/CNBC/TVReports/RalphLaurenWindowShopping.aspx
i think it was the levi store in london that got a design team to come up with a similar system for a marketing ploy a few years back. there system was more along the lines of fun interaction with the customer to draw them to the shop front. i do not remember the details but i saw a documentary on british television.
oh, man! that's the best comment span i've seen in a LONG time!!!
business liability insurance? in case someone slips?
classic...
oops, i meant to say "spam". :)
What prevents people from coming up next to you and tapping all over the glass and putting stuff into your cart? Obviously, you can delete them before payment, but you might never get that far if people hang around and bug you. I can't see this ending well.
Don't you still have to go INTO the store to pick up your clothing? Or is it mailed to you?
Just trying to figure out how this would work....
LMAO ever herd of wanting to try shit on before you buy it..... i mean come on i cant see this being the "next" way to buy clothing
on the other hand at other stores i can see it happening..... for example: gaming stores
but then again wouldent this just be like a big A$$ vinding machine?
This way tramps and anyone drunk really can get super tricked out with all the top clothing, not to mention people hanging around looking for chump mugging targets
The same application I do it, in Italy, in 1987 (yes 87) with a Commodore Amiga and a particular keyboard I create called WindoVid that can run behind bullet-proof glass up to 5cm. At that time people can see the complete Commodore products Catalog 24h.