High-tech dressing rooms have generated lots of buzz in the past 18 months but no full-scale deployments. Moreover, some wonder how useful they'll be. A recent report, New Future In Store from TNS showed that while 73 percent of shoppers expect to see touchscreens in dressing rooms in the near future, only 23 percent would likely use them.
One success, according to Self Service World, has been the rollout of Cisco's "Intelligent Fitting Room" system at Japanese department store Mitsukoshi. As customers walk in the dressing room, an RFID reader detects the tags affixed to the products, triggering wall-mounted touchscreens to display product information and offer alternate sizes and compatible accessories. Pressing a button signals a sales staff to fetch another size or color. Apparel sales at Mitsukoshi have increased 15 percent since the technology was introduced while stockroom trips to check inventory were cut 25 percent.
A failure came from Prada, which pulled its RFID-driven "smart dressing rooms" only a few years after launching the concept to great fanfare at its Soho store in 2001. Business 2.0 called Prada's attempt a "high-tech misstep," citing faulty technology, too-high expectations and a surly attitude toward the machinery from the staff.
Indeed, most of these technologies remain in pilot mode, if that. Moreover, Patrick Moorhead, director of emerging media for Avenue A Razorfish, said the retailers most interested in his firm's technologies are boutiques rather than big-boxes.
Yet many technologies are still garnering attention. Among those:
- Last September, German retailer Galeria Kaufhof outfitted the entire third floor of its Essen-based store with item-level RFID tags. Shoppers entering a dressing room are instantly shown product information, care instructions and price. Touchscreens mounted on shelves in the store allow shoppers to determine whether or not their size is in stock;
- The Social Retailing dressing room, introduced at the NRF convention from IconNicholson, includes a camera that sends a photo of the shopper in his/her new outfit to selected friends, who can reply with opinions and even suggest other items from the catalog;
- Smart Fitting Room, from 5stat, enables stores to learn what items are taken to the fitting room but never purchased, or what items customers take to dressing rooms but always ask for a larger size.
The article concludes that it's unknown whether consumers want the technology. But Mr. Moorhead believes the technology will be adopted if it proves useful.
"That's the story behind TiVo, that's the story behind most of the Apple technologies, and we're making bets that that's going to be the case with most emerging retail technology," said Mr. Moorhead. "It's not that shopping sucks today, but the availability of technology to the consumer in the shopping experience is going to enhance it for them, and they're going to crave it once they understand that it's available to them."
Discussion Questions: Do you think expectations have been too high around high-tech dressing room technologies? What's holding back greater adoption of such technologies? Which dressing room technologies do you believe hold the most promise for adoption at retail?