You are planning a romantic getaway for Valentine’s Day. You have recently lost a lot of weight so the dresses you already have no longer look very flattering on you. You are in the market for a new dress.
This is what you would have done…
5-10 years ago : Drag your husband or another friend to tell you how you look when you try on a dress. Go to the shopping district or a mall with a lot of fashion/designer stores. Pick a few dresses you think would be good, try it on, realize they suck, pick a few more, they make you look fat, throw them away, try some more. All the while your companion is getting frustrated. After a few hours of shopping, you finally find something you like, complain how expensive the dress is for sometime and then of course, buy it. Now comes the part about getting accessories or worse, another dress. Before you know it, you have spent the whole day shopping, spent a whole bunch on meals and snacks, not including the expensive dress.
1 – 2 years ago : You go to the store to find the sizes that fit you well. Visit a few online stores and order a few. You try them on at home, some fit but donn’t look as good as the online photo, some are misfits and some are ok. If you are lucky, you get it right the first time or send them back and do it all over again (that is really how one of my friends shops!). Or go the old fashioned route and spend a day at the mall. You still spend a lot of time, but at least most of it is from your own home and the price of the dress is cheaper than buying it from a mall.
Now, picture this : You browse the store website for dresses, you pick a few you like. You also click on the chat window to talk to a fashion expert, he/she will ask you a few questions about your taste, size and the occasion and suggest a few dresses that will be a good fit. In another browser window you google the reviews for some of the dresses you chose. People will be talking about whether it runs smaller or bigger, how much it wears down after washing, how comfortable/uncomfortable they felt and whether they got a good deal somewhere.
You make note of all this and finalize a few dresses. You drive to the local branch of the online store. When you enter the store, you “check in” to the store via a social media site. The sales person welcomes you and greets you by name. She has set aside the dresses you picked online for you to try. She has also gone ahead and picked a few others to try based on the ones you selected. She guides you to the magic mirror, which is essentially a camera. The mirror takes a picture of you, the sales person selects the dress from the computer and simulates the dress on you. You can see how the dress will look on you without even touching the dress. Within a minute you have “tried” all the dresses and picked the final few to actually wear and try.
Before you head to the dressing room, the magic mirror suggests a few accessories to go along with your picks. You try the dress on with the complete accessories you will be wearing to see the final “look”. You click a picture of you in your new dress(es) and send it via Twitter or text it to your friends/spouse to get their opinion. They give you a “yay” or “nay” for each dress. Based on their opinion and what you see in the mirror you pick your best dress.
Remember, you checked in to the store when you came in? You just got a message from that social media site saying that there is a coupon waiting for you to use at this store.
You scan the coupon code from your phone while you are checking out and voila you saved 20% off the price. The entire process took 1 hr, depending on the driving time.
Do you think this is a good way to shop? What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of this way of shopping? Privacy concerns? Do you even think this is possible?
I went all journalistic and have a tour of the “future of shopping” post ready. Before I post the piece, I would like to hear from you to know where you think the future of shopping is headed. And don’t forget to drop in on Friday to see if this is really possible!
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d like to try something like this! I think it would make the shopping process a lot less frustrating.
Interesting concept. Know of anyone who is implementing this? I might give it a try, but you need to see how the fabric moves with you (and a picture can’t tell you if it cloth is itchy or not!)
I would love to be able to use the thrid way of shopping. It sounds like the one that saves most time and is generally less hasstle. For me shopping is a necessity, mind, not a pleasure. For the time being I have only heard about something similar but in reverse being done in Europe: people trying things on in designer shops and then buying them on the internet.
Quite honestly, I can’t decide. Obviously, the store is saving you time and frustration with this type of shopping. However, I could also see all this marketing causing people to blow their budgets. It’s a toss up.
Gosh, this kind of personalized experience would be amazing. I would love it if this existed. The closest thing I have come to is online shopping with customer support.
I’m with Shaun. I like the concept and technology of it a lot, but the temptations could multiply for a lot of people. if this is where shopping is headed, it sounds pretty cool!
I do think this is possilbe, partly because I shop a lot like this already. I prefer the instant gratification of buying something in the store and having it now, but I hate spending time in malls and stores, so I look online first and use features that tell me if what I like is available in my size in my local store, and then head to the store with the list.
It would be great if I could just send that list to the store and they would have everything ready for me when I got there. And a good sales associate should already be recommending similar outfits/accessories.
Challenges come with scheduling and the technology. While imaging software is good, I’m not certain that it is good enough to really tell me how a dress or top will look on me due to the fact that different fabrics cling differently, so if I’m not wearing an outfit of the same fabric, the picutre can’t really tell how it will fit my body.
If the technology was available and reliable, I’d definitely shop like this. Who wants to be stuck in the mall, running from store to store, disrobing multiple times to try on outfits that either don’t look good or don’t fit?
I don’t shop much online right now – mainly because I don’t shop much period. This is a very cool concept though – never thought of it as a possibility.
It seems like a recipe for the up-sell – at least on the accessory aspect!
Suba, I have to admit, this post makes me happy I possess a Y-Chromosome. For the most part sizes are standardized. Yeah, I’ve got to get my shirts tailored, but it’s much easier for me than my wife!
On the article? The convenience is awesome, and I don’t doubt we’ll see it soon. Ads can already be personalized for the viewer – that’s only a few steps away from a virtual personal shopper.
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