Fitting rooms fit for purpose
Retail thrives when it’s Human Centric
And that means making it easy for consumers to find the things they want and buy them for the right price. It means cutting out as many obstacles as possible to making the sale. Sales thrive when the shop floor or website is seamlessly connected to everything from stock to advice, all the way to checkout.
This paves the way for an improved relationship between the shopper and the retailer enables by - smart-phones and instore digital touchpoints. This is the power of digital. Here’s a story about fitting rooms which proves the point. It’s how technology can help you put your consumer at the heart of everything you do.
Jan Stoetzel, Fujitsu´s Global Head of Marketing for Retail, delves deeper into the subject in his new blog.
Blog
Cut the pain points, make the sale
The fitting room is a pain point. You’ve spent time finding what you think you like, but you want to try it on. You go to the fitting room, the number of items you have is checked (a little suspiciously) and you feel as if you’re being judged – will you try and steal the items or not?
You feel uneasy. And then you have to get undressed, put on the garment, go out to show your partner or friend, then go back in, change back, exit again and, if you like the garment, find a till where you can pay for it and, most probably join a queue, or return the items and start the process all over again.
Uneasy customers don’t make purchases. It’s that simple. So, why has it taken to long to transform the fitting room experience from a trial into a driver for sales? It is, perhaps, a lack of imagination. Or, more likely, a sense that the fitting room is just a sidebar to the main arena – the sales floor. Connected Retail is the answer. It’s what ensures that the humble fitting room can close the sale.
Jan Stoetzel
Fujitsu´s Global Head of
Marketing for Retail
At Fujitsu, we’re working hard to apply the right technology across the entire retail estate so that every part of it - from the supply chain into the warehouse and to the online store, then through to, yes, even the fitting room - is part of a digital continuum that boosts sales and deepens customer relationships.
Connected Retail technology enables you to really KNOW your customer – before they buy, during the buying process, and across the aftersales phase which should seamlessly link to the desire to purchase another item – from you! An energized, digitalized fitting room brings all those things together into one satisfying (and profitable) experience.
It’s truly human centric. And it’s vital in the retail fightback which is gathering pace across the sector. At the start of 2019, Forbes magazine predicted that ‘Customer-Centricity will go mainstream.’ That surprised me. Why now? Surely being customer centric was ALWAYS important! What Forbes meant was that retailers were now attempting to use technology to personalize their offering at scale. That’s what Connected Retail has been about from the start.
So, that’s why we’re working with our customers to make that visit to the fitting room a pleasure rather than a chore. Instead of making the customer do all the work, the technology helps them search styles, sizes, colors and combinations via a digital interface. They can share the experience with their family and friends. They get information on exactly what’s in stock, what can be taken away there and then, or can be delivered (perhaps even altered) to their homes and, of course, by placing a till right there so there’s no need to go and queue somewhere else, the sale is closed. It’s not uneasy, it’s easy!
Connected Retail brought to profitable life.
Outcome Story
Fitting rooms fit for purpose
A pile of clothes stacked at the entrance of a set of fitting rooms made the director of a large retailer uneasy. Why was the fitting room of this flagship store hindering sales?
