Snap’s Partner Summit event in June, in which the company shows off its latest product updates and media partnerships, produced such a flurry of new innovations.

Some of Snapchat’s newer features, like the machine-learning based SnapML, are already being used by brands like Gucci for augmented reality try-on features for clothing products. Not a bad innovation for brands whose brick-and-mortar operations have been shuttered by a global pandemic.

Others, such as the Story and Lens formats (see Adidas and Tommy Hilfiger), are now so recognisable that you may have seen similar versions launched on other social media products.

In any case, Snapchat remains an important source of creativity in digital media.

1 Paramount Pictures ‘Sonic The Hedgehog’ by Wavemaker

To promote the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie in January, the eponymous blue hedgehog came to life in digital form on a number of landmarks across the UK, including Tower Bridge and the Natural History Museum, using augmented reality.

The creative even portrays Sonic as collecting rings, a major objective of the video game on which the character is based. Snapchat said the campaign had more than 27 million impressions with a unique reach of 10.5 million.

2 Lego ‘And I think to myself’ by Engine Mischief, The Producers and Initiative Junior

Lego is running a Christmas pop-up in London’s Covent Garden this month that features a variety of brick-built installations to bring to life its “And I think to myself” campaign, inspired by the lyrics in its Christmas creative.

Snapchat users can access a karaoke AR lens that will not only help them learn the lyrics to the song but be able to see the lyrics like “I see sausage trees”, “My horse is blue” and “Don’t seem to give a duck”.

3 Adidas ‘#HomeTeam’ by Adidas

To help people stay active while staying at home, the sportswear giant launched a series of filters and an AR Lens to encourage Snapchatters to stay home and to offer them creative, fit and fun ways to celebrate how they were staying active, with the people closest to them. Snapchat said it was viewed more than 14 million times.

4 Public Health England ‘Better Health – Every Mind Matters’ by OmniGov and Wavemaker

This campaign, which ran from September to November, focused on encouraging children and young people to take positive actions towards better mental health. The campaign targeted 13- to 18-year-olds on Snapchat, and included both AR Lenses and a bespoke three-part content series called “In My Head”, produced in partnership with Barcroft Studios.

5 Gucci ‘Try-on sneaker’ by Gucci

To create excitement around the launch of its new sneaker collection in June, Gucci partnered with Snapchat to launch an AR shoe try-on. Leveraging the recently launched SnapML feature in Lens Studio, Gucci offered Snapchatters a try-on experience for four different pairs of sneakers and a route to purchase via a dedicated “Shop Now” button located inside the Lens.

6 Tommy Hilfiger ‘Looney Tunes’ by Tommy Hilfiger

Marking the launch of its Looney Tunes collection in April, Tommy Jeans launched its first-ever AR portal Lens on Snapchat. The Lens opened with the iconic Bugs Bunny look in selfie mode and when flipping the camera, Snapchatters were invited to step into the fashion world of Tommy Jeans x Looney Tunes.

Inside the Portal Lens people could explore the collection, interact with the space and also use the“Shop Now” button, giving Snapchatters the opportunity to buy the limited edition collection instantly wherever they were.

7 Tate Britain, The National Gallery and the Bank of England ‘£20 note campaign’

Anyone in possession of the new £20 note (or a picture of it) was able to see their cash in a new dimension, interact and learn about JMW Turner’s artwork which adorns the new note. This campaign launched in February.

8 DJ Mag ‘David Guetta – world’s best DJ’ by GoSpooky

DJ Mag turned to Snapchat to put on an AR concert to celebrate David Guetta being announced as number one in its World’s Top 100 DJs list in November. Snapchatters around the world could use the lens, point their phones at the sky and unlock an exclusive David Guetta set – the biggest of his life.

9 Sky Q ‘Everything you love in one place, easy’ by Sky Creative

This campaign sought to bring the SkyQ Portal to life, having launched in October. Working closely with Sky Creative Agency, Snap’s in-house design team crafted Story ads to play into the Sky Q “Portal” seen across the integrated campaign.

The Story Ad was meant to surprise Snapchatters as the creative seemingly consumed the User Interface within the Stories tab. Snapchat said this was viewed by more than 6.8 million UK Snapchatters.

10 Samsung ‘A-Series’ by Rapp and Atomic Digital

This campaign was adapted from the TV ad in July to create a bespoke AR Lens that lets the Snapchatter control different elements of the creative.

The post Snapchat’s favourite UK campaigns of 2020 appeared first on This Is Retail.

Retailers are innovating across the globe in a huge variety of ways – and that innovation is perfectly exemplified in retail displays. Engaging displays and visual merchandising are a key part of how physical retailers can continue to drive footfall, awareness and loyalty.

From extraordinary facades and unusual interiors to eco-friendly displays and art installations, here’s our take on the 50 best retail displays (in alphabetical order) on the planet.

1. Adidas Flagship (London)

Adidas’ much-hyped London flagship opposite Selfridges is full of innovative displays and bold visuals.
Firstly, the store has been designed with flexibility in mind – movable cabinets and displays are found on every floor that allow Adidas to easily create a new activation or collaboration. Sustainability is intelligently visualised too. A dedicated ‘Marley’ sneaker display explains how the groundbreaking product is made using ocean plastics. Augmented reality displays are also abundant, adding an extra visual layer to sustainability storytelling and promoting visuals.

2. Aesop (Sydney)

Located in Westfield Bondi Junction, the new Aesop store has been designed to evoke 1960s Australian homes. Created by Mlkk Studio, the space has been made using pinewood planks and panels, including a stud wall vaasard, to appeal to the largely local Australian customer base. The timber has been sourced from a nearby woodwork store to minimise costs but also in support of the ‘local’ theme. This feeling of ‘local’ is reflected throughout the store with the interiors resembling the design trends of the 70s. There is even a ceramic coffee cup display further capturing domestic life in the 60s and 70s.

3. Anya Hindmarch (London)

Luxury handbag designer Anya Hindmarch has launched the ’I am a plastic bag’ collection for London Fashion Week in favour of a catwalk show. The designer has filled her London stores with plastic bottles to make a statement about waste. From the outside the windows are filled with empty plastic bottles to highlight the new collection’s use of recycled plastic. The stores will be closed for three days over Fashion Week to keep the focus on the displays and, ultimately, the message. Ninety-thousand used plastic bottles have been obtained to fill the stores which is shockingly the amount that are purchased globally every six seconds.

4. APL (LA)

Sneaker brand APL’s first store in LA is defined by its long narrow space that is both dramatic and serene. As the store is located in the ‘City of Angels’ the founders wanted to conjure up an image of ‘heaven’. The high ceilings, narrow width and runway-like depth are immediately noticeable in this extraordinary store. Whilst the space itself is incredibly dramatic, the overall aesthetic is not in competition with the sneakers on display and they still manage to be the star of the show.

5. Apple (NYC)

The iconic Apple store on Fifth Ave has been fully refurbished and redesigned, with lots of features that set it apart from the rest. Our favourite is the 62 circular lights that surround the iconic cube entrance and allow natural light to flood into the underground space. At night they illuminate the plaza. Nine of these, known as the ‘sky lenses’, rise out of the ground for more dramatic visual effect. The reflective capsules also double up as public seating so people can enjoy the experience for longer.

6. The Arrivals OutThere Lab (NYC)

Fashion retailer The Arrivals created a weather-themed pop-up to promote its clothing in the elements. Three different shopping zones were created to reflect three different microclimates. LED lights broadcast the weather in three cities – Tokyo, Berlin and New York – and the clothes are displayed to reflect dressing in those climates. Everything in the store is white with neon accents which means that the clothing can take centre stage.

7. Axel Arigato (Copenhagen)

Swedish footwear retailer Axel Arigato’s flagship store in Copenhagen is a minimalist, brutalist space developed with Stockholm-based architect Christian Halleröd. The huge, raw concrete staircase dominates the space – and the entire store matches this same grey concrete look. The only exception are the bum-shaped sculptures by Brazilian artist Kiri-Una Brito Meumann, which inevitably really stand out. The shoes are sparsely laid out which creates a dramatic overall visual feel.

8. Benefit Cosmetics pop-up (London)

Beauty giant Benefit Cosmetics launched an immersive pop-up in Shoreditch called the BeneFIT Anti Gym. Customers are encouraged to work on their brows, not their biceps. To coincide with the launch of its new eyebrow palette, the shop fit is that of a very pink and very Instagrammable gym – complete with pink ‘lucky lockers’ full of Benefit goodies that customers can win a key to unlock. This is a gym people will not want to leave in a hurry.

9. Benetton Printemps pop-up (Paris)

Benetton created a ‘rainbow theatre’ pop-up in Printemps that was bold and eye-catching. Without needing to use any tech, the space was a sensory experience with the focus being on the colour palette. An installation on the wall of paint tins pours graphical lines of paint down the walls and onto the floor. The same designs are used on the clothes, along with jars of sweets and seating. It is a simple yet striking display of colour.

10. Box by Posti (Helsinki)

Finnish postal service Posti has created Box as the middleman between online ordering and delivering to your home. Customers can instead get their orders sent here where they will be held in lockers until they are ready to collect them. The space has been beautifully designed by design studio Fyra, where the lockers are accompanied by changing rooms as well as areas to relax whilst you wait. Everything is of the moment from the pale pink lockers to the dedicated recycling area.

11. Camper (Barcelona)

Kengo Kuma led the renovation of Camper’s Barcelona store, and decided to use an ancient Catalan construction method involving vaulted ceramic plates. The beautiful technique is used throughout, from furniture to shelves holding the shoes. This creates a unique visual identity, but importantly it also builds a strong localised link to the design heritage of Barcelona.

12. Canada Goose (Toronto)

Canadian outerwear retailer Canada Goose has a new store in Toronto that doesn’t sell any coats. Instead customers are invited to try on a coat before being transported to the ‘Cold Room’ – a -12 C room with real snow. This room can be accessed via a glass walkway that mimics the sounds of cracking ice as you walk across it. Once in the room you will be met with floor-to-ceiling screens displaying arctic landscapes.

13. Claus Porto (NYC)

One hundred and thirty one year-old beauty and fragrance retailer Claus Porto enlisted the help of Tacklebox Architecture to help create its boutique in NYC. The small interior is a long alleyway filled with a freestanding crinkled structure that is able to house and display its products by providing ledges for the items to sit on. The vaulted design is said to represent the arched portals of São Bento train station in Porto to highlight the brand’s heritage within the store.

14. Depop at Selfridges (London)

Fashion marketplace app Depop opened a pop-up in Selfridges to showcase the app. The items of clothing were displayed on moving red rails, similar to those found at dry cleaners. Each week it showcased different Depop sellers who exhibited a curated selection of vintage, luxury, streetwear and independent designers

15. En (Paris)

Japanese beauty spa En has an outpost in Paris designed around the theme of Japanese tea ceremonies and french wineries. Occupying an 18th century building, the space has been designed by Paris based architects Archiee. The space resembles a wine cellar with exposed brickwork and gold fixtures that makes it feel historic and beautiful at the same time.

16. Everlane (Williamsburg, NYC)

Everlane’s store in trendy Williamsburg is a large but welcoming space full of light and minimalist design. The wood and concrete floors add some texture to the otherwise white space – and this sense of space and light is the perfect way of visualising the brand’s ethically produced range. A tree also occupies the centre of the double height space, surrounded by seating for customers to relax in – all of which adds to the tranquil feeling.

17. Fig (Vancouver)

Fig Facial Bar is an oasis of green in Vancouver. It features painted soft greens, scalloped green walls, green basins, dark green velvet curtains and light green barber chairs. But somehow, all that green works together perfectly to create a calming and visually unique space – which is testament to the skill of the designers, Scott & Scott.

18. Forte_forte (Tokyo)

Forte_forte Tokyo is the Italian clothing retailer’s first boutique in Japan. The store’s design combines brass, travertine and gold leaf, which gives it a distinct and delicate feel, much like its spaces in Milan, Paris and London.

19. Fortnum & Mason Chapel of Love (London)

Iconic department store Fortnum & Mason has opened a wedding chapel installation where visitors can actually get married. It is London’s first in-store wedding chapel and has been designed around the central staircase. Decked out in pastel hues that are in-keeping with the store’s tasteful interior, it fills three floors of the atrium. It takes the concept of in-store experiences to a new level.

20. Forty Five Ten (New York)

Located at Hudson Yards, this store is a fusion of art and fashion. Created by design studio Snarkitecture, the glass brick storefront makes an immediate and dramatic impression on the customer. Like its other boutiques, the store features a number of bold artworks interspersed with the products, which really elevates the status and focus of each item.

21. Freitag (Zurich)

Freitag’s Zurich concept store focuses on its well-known ‘make your own’ recycled tarp bag station. The microfactory that conducts this hands-on process takes centre stage in the space, and that’s precisely what makes this store visually engaging.

22. Gacha Gacha coffee (Tokyo)

Japanese coffee brand Maruyama Coffee has opened an unmanned cafe, Gacha Gacha, where customers are their own baristas. The striking black and copper design adds to the uniqueness of this space with every element – from capsule vending machines to grinding stations – featuring the same sleek design. It’s a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds.

23. Gentle Monster (Shanghai)

Gentle Monster is well known for its eye-catching displays and multisensory experiences that transcend traditional retail design, and the Shanghai flagship is one of its finest examples. A series of rooms feature unique ideas such as woven sculptural creatures, piles of soil, wooden boats and pieces of technological equipment. Like all of its global stores, its retail displays are like no other.

24. Glossier pop-up (London)

The Glossier pop-up in London is packed with retail displays that are entirely true to the brand. The series of rooms through narrow doorways (think of a classic London terraced home) feature floral patterned wallpaper and displays, and a huge range of bold colour combinations. There’s also a Glossier rooftop which pays homage to the London skyline. If you haven’t seen it for yourself, you’ll probably have seen it on Instagram.

25. Greenery Unlimited (NYC)

Located in Brooklyn you will find New York’s ‘greenest store’ from the people behind botanic design studio Greenery NYC. The store is packed with foliage for sale from cacti to ferns and creepers. The space feels more like a botanical garden than a store and the 120 sq ft wall of plants adds to that feeling. The space is tapping into a growing trend for plant filled interiors, designed to reduce stress and anxiety. The seating areas have been designed for customers to soak up the surroundings.

26. Harmay (Hong Kong)

Cosmetic retailer Harmay’s Hong Kong store is a beautiful space that’s dominated by a steely metallic design. Most notably, the walls of the main floor are lined with unlabelled stainless steel drawers packed with products. Hints are given about where to find certain products, but for the most part customers just have to open them and see what’s inside. This simple concept makes the space uncluttered and adds a genuine sense of discovery.

27. Hermès (Amsterdam)

Hermès glass brick-fronted Amsterdam store is visually striking long before you enter. The glass brick facade makes the townhouse building partially see through. Ingeniously, some internal walls were carefully removed so that passers-by could see some, but not all of an internal terracotta-bricked wall – which gives the illusion of a dissolving wall.

28. Issey Miyake (Tokyo)

An industrial pleating machine is the star of the show at Issey Miyake’s Homme Plisse flagship in Tokyo. The machine is actively used by staff during opening hours, offering some real retail theatre for customers. This fits perfectly with the otherwise minimalistic and sleek store design, and the brightly coloured garments on display.

29. JINS at Ginza Loft (Tokyo)

JINS eyewear’s shop at the Ginza Loft in Tokyo is a great example of making humble materials look beautiful. The glasses are held in utilitarian, prefabricated steel racks. And the glasses themselves sit on scotch-brite yellow sponges – exactly the type you do the washing up with. But the space manages to look beautiful and entirely unique.

30. LEGO ‘House of Dots’ (London)

Artist Camille Walala and Lego teamed up to create an installation built into a shipping container. Located in Coal Drops Yard, the ‘House of Dots’ was a fantasy world of pastel coloured dots that housed a ball pit, giant slide and even a disco. The launch coincided with Lego’s new DOTS range.

31. Louis Vuitton X Virgil Abloh (NYC)

Luxury fashion retailer Louis Vuitton has partnered with artistic director Virgil Abloh on a neon green pop-up in NYC. The all-green retail experience starts from the outside where the entire store is painted the same shade of neon green. Even the trash can and mailbox outside have been painted in the same shade. Upon entering the neon green runs throughout the store design, giving the impression the entire store has been doused in a giant tin of paint.

32. LoveShackFancy (NYC)

LoveShackFancy’s store on Bleecker Street is more like stepping into an old millinery. The reupholstered furniture is from the 17th century. The store is filled with roses, baskets and potted plants and is a gateway to fabric stores of the past. It is the complete antithesis of NYC’s usually sleek retail scene. The store is packed with racks on racks of the ethereal clothing the retailer is famous for and you would be easily mistaken for thinking it was a vintage store.

33. Lunettes Selection (Berlin)

Eyewear retailer Lunettes Selection has used pastel green interiors for its engaging Berlin store. It draws on the area’s heritage with floor to ceiling mint green cabinets that have been assembled from 1960s tool cupboards salvaged from nearby. Glasses are displayed in drawers within these cabinets, cleverly encouraging customers to interact with the displays.

34. Lush Labs (Tokyo)

The Labs pop-up space in Harajuku, Tokyo manages to be both attention-grabbing and eco-friendly. It only sells bathbombs, and all without packaging – extending the ‘naked’ concept launched elsewhere around the world. Visually the rainbow of bathbombs is stunning – but also eco-friendly.

35. Made Thought (London)

Design studio Made Thought has opened an experimental pop-up in London. It’s a space that’s intended to incorporate lots of elements you might expect from a website – from editorial content to installations that change weekly. Products are interspersed with this editorial content giving it the feel of a shoppable Instagram feed.

36. Moustache (Paris)

French design company Moustache’s Paris store features a stone interior that really lets the products shine. It resembles a cave with painted chalk whites to give the feel its displays have been carved out of stone.

The furnishing and design products are displayed within alcoves or set on plinths that curve into the walls – a detail that creates a beautiful aesthetic.

37. Museum of Qatar Gift Shop (Doha)

The Museum of Qatar Gift Shop in Doha is an extraordinary retail space. Featuring undulating wooden surfaces that make the store feel like a cave, it’s modelled on a mineral formation and was built with 40,000 separate pieces of wood. Amazingly, everything was assembled by hand by Italian carpenter Claudio Devoto. This gives the shop an aesthetic and a story that lives up to the museum itself.

38. Museum Store at MoMA (NYC)

The new Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) flagship in New York is full of attention-grabbing, bold displays. It features a two-storey bookshelf in the centre, and a 30-foot feature wall comprising 2,000 contemporary art publications. A glass elevator gives visitors the opportunity to truly take in this fantastic structure.

39. NikeLab Re-Creation Center (Chicago)

Louis Vuitton’s artistic director Virgil Abloh has teamed up with Nike to create NikeLab in his hometown of Chicago. Re-creation and sustainability is the big focus here, with walls lined with shoebox paper and the inventory displayed on plain cardboard signage. Seats, flooring and mannequins are all created from ground up Nike sneakers – and customers are invited to contribute their old trainers for this exact purpose. It’s the perfect example of how a cool, engaging space can be used from unusual and unloved materials.

40. Olfactory (NYC)

Olfactory in New York, the first and only physical space of the online perfume brand, focuses entirely on customisation. The nine base fragrances for every customised perfume are beautifully displayed on different colour backdrops – and these dominate the interior of the entire store. Because of this customers are immediately drawn to them to begin their fragrance journey. A large counter sits on the other side of the space where customers can discuss and finalise their concoctions.

41. Pass on Plastic (London)

Pass on Plastic is a pop-up store in London that’s solely focused on raising awareness around the issue of single use plastics. The floor-to-ceiling wallpaper depicts plastic waste such as toothbrushes and plastic bags that from a distance look like a pretty, terrazzo print. Centrally, blue-topped plinths resemble islands in this sea of plastic waste. It’s a very arresting scene and an extremely important space.

42. Prada ‘Hyper Leaves’ (Paris)

Italian fashion retailer Prada has teamed up with historic department store Galeries Lafayette Haussmann to create two pop-ups – one for men and the other for women. The neon green installations are inspired by the theme of ‘wild nature’. The women’s space features a forest pavilion whilst the men’s space has a giant baobab tree at the centre of it. With a colour scheme that’s unforgettable, these pop-ups are making quite a splash.

43. R13 (NYC)

R13’s flagship store in New York is full of innovative design flourishes. Large blocks covered in LED screens display projections but also double up as clothing displays. Visual content, which changes seasonally, is a key feature too giving the space the feel of an exhibition in certain areas. The exposed bricks and pipes contrast well with the modern products and installations.

44. The RealReal (NYC)

The RealReal is changing perceptions around pre-owned clothing having created a hugely popular online marketplace for buyers and sellers of luxury clothing. Its space in Soho, New York, brilliantly conveys the spirit of the brand – passersby would never realise they’re walking past a second-hand clothing shop. The rich and luxurious interiors and beautiful cafe all serve to support this sense of renewed luxury.

45. Reformation (NYC)

The fashion retailer Reformation’s store in Soho, New York, is an excellent physical representation of everything the brand stands for. Large screens allow customers to check stock and order items in different sizes and colours to arrive in fitting rooms – and this simple technology allows the space to not be overloaded with product. Instead it’s sparse, tranquil, and able to include lots of storytelling about its sustainable approach.

46. Rubio (Valencia)

Children’s publisher Rubio’s first retail space in Valencia is a bold and engaging store. It’s divided into very different sections, with an area full of nostalgic design for older generations, and a ‘time machine’ section supported by augmented reality goggles for younger readers. There’s also a ‘tunnel of colour’ – another way the retailer has worked to create a space that lives up to the imagination of the stories it sells.

47. Self-Portrait (NYC)

Self-Portrait’s NYC pop-up featured white and pink floral lace of varying lengths hung from six-metre high wooden plinths. The wall of lace was located in the entryway and designed to envelop customers as soon as they walked through the door. The womenswear brand called it a ‘journey of exploration, touch and discovery’.

48. Starbucks Reserve Roastery (Chicago)

The recently opened Starbucks Roastery in Chicago is the largest Starbucks in the world. It’s a multi-sensory destination featuring a 56-foot cask at the centre that works like an hourglass with the coffee beans filtering through its connected tubes. The spiral escalator wraps around the cask so customers can watch from all angles.

Another notable display is the mural by local artist Eulojio Ortega that depicts the planting, selection and processing of the coffee beans. Much like other Starbucks Reserve Roastery flagships, this is a Disneyland for coffee lovers where experience comes first.

49. Vans (London)

Vans’ new Oxford Street flagship is its largest store in Europe with a big focus on storytelling and customisation. A halfpipe display sits near the entrance, and dozens of product displays feature stories from the brand’s and skateboarding’s past. But the star of the store is the huge customisation desk in the centre, which sits all the way around its edge. Vans artists stand in the middle customising sneakers by hand all day long – and customers are encouraged to join them.

50. YJY Maike Centre (Xian, China)

The YJY Maike Centre Flagship is a bookstore and commercial complex in Xian, China that almost defies belief. The idea was to create a library, gallery and public space – but that doesn’t really do justice to the vast 4,500 metre sq store. Illuminated 10-metre high bookshelves dominate the space and arch over entrances, with a huge spiral staircase in the middle of it all. Lush seating areas rest in amongst the books creating a truly incredible place to read, socialise and flick through potential purchases.

Via Insider Trends

The post The World’s Best Retail Playgrounds Right Now appeared first on This Is Retail.

Whether you’re in Manhattan for pleasure or business, there are dozens of experiential stores to check out. Some double as community hangouts, some serve as learning experiences and some are just for the fun of it.

Here are 22 to hit up next time you’re in the Big Apple.

Adidas

Address: 565 5th Ave.

The sportswear retailer’s fifth avenue location has everything from a juice press to a set of bleachers for customers to watch games on, and also includes a print shop where guests can customize clothing. A miniature track is set up on one floor, where customers can take a run or get their stride analyzed, and another floor includes a turf field with soccer balls, kettle bells and other workout equipment.

Allbirds

Address: 68 Prince St.

“It’s a great spot to understand more about the construction and wool fabric used in the brand’s top-selling footwear,” Katie Smith, retail analysis and insights director at Edited, told Retail Dive in an email. “As the brand is direct-to-consumer, this is often the first time a consumer interacts with the product. Though the store’s small size and large crowd can feel overwhelming, the selection of free colored laces at the storefront means everyone leaves feeling bonded with the brand.”

Amazon Books

Address: 7 W 34th St.

As one of Amazon’s 15 physical bookstore locations, the store offers well-lit shelves of physical books as well as demos of devices such as Echos, the Fire TV, e-readers and tech-enhanced toys. A look inside gives shoppers an idea of how Amazon views physical retail and its connection to its online marketplace.

American Girl

Address: 75 Rockefeller Plaza

The 40,000 square-foot flagship, unveiled in November 2017, features interactive experiences like party options in the café, a content hub showing the company’s videos and a Girl-and-Doll Salon, where girls can book appointments with their dolls for hairstyling, ear piercing and manicures. It also features a design studio, where customers can customize their dolls and outfits, and select girl-sized products for themselves.

b8ta

Address: 151 W 34th St., Herald Square

This high-tech, high-touch showroom, which just announced a partnership with Macy’s, is located inside Macy’s Herald Square and is focused on emphasizing the brands it curates. The shop-in-shop concept is designed to fit in nearly any retail store and it employs highly trained store associates that know brands as well as the manufacturers, allowing them to engage with customers at a higher level.

Casper

Address: 627 Broadway

Casper’s small location on Broadway — despite also offering blankets, sheets and pillows — functions more as a showroom space for the company’s mattresses, which are set up in small tree house-like setups throughout the store. Customers are encouraged to lie down on the beds, close the curtains that substitute for doors in these small spaces and even take a nap to help them better feel out the product.

Converse

Address: 560 Broadway

The shoe spot has a customization lab on the bottom floor, where customers can select different fabrics, laces and designs to tailor shoes to their own preferences, as well as a spacious main floor, with shoes grouped together by collection. It’s “old old school,” Manolo Almagro, managing partner at Q Division, told Retail Dive in an interview. “People can tell you the history of each shoe.”

Dyson

Address: 640 5th Ave.

Opened in December 2017, the new appliance flagship demo store is a clear example of a brand engaging with its customers in an educational and experiential way. Shoppers can test out the Dyson supersonic hairdryer, the company’s foray into the beauty space; and the Dyson V8 vacuum, among other high-tech products.

Everlane

Address: 28 Prince St.

This is the first of two physical locations for the e-commerce darling, which once promised it would sooner fold operations before going brick and mortar. The new store, opened in December 2017, features T-shirts, cashmere, denim and shoes from a brand focused on transparency in its supply chain.

Glossier showroom

Address: 123 Lafayette St.

As one of the most disruptive beauty brands, a look inside one of the e-commerce brand’s two physical locations, opened November 2017, offers a theater-inspired experience. The store features the brand’s entire line of skincare and makeup products as well as interactive mirrors and a unique fragrance experience. Employees weave through the products in pink jumpsuits and are prepared to help customers with product selection or anything else that comes up.

Kith

Address: 337 Lafayette St.

This concept has a cool kid, sneakerhead vibe, completed by the rows upon rows of street shoes lining the windows and circular in-store sneaker displays. Store associates help customers locate a particular shoe and are also well-informed on the history of each line. One of the floors even features a “treat bar” with ice cream and shakes for customers to enjoy.

Lululemon meditation studio

Address: 597 5th Ave.

Opened in July 2017, the concept space is nestled in an 8,000-square-foot store. The area aims to immerse customers in the community of Lululemon, offering an experience over a specific purchase. The store offers “zen pods” as well as a list of self-guided meditations.

MM.Lafleur

Address: 611 Broadway, Suite 401

The e-commerce darling known for shipping curated boxes of women’s workwear to customer homes has two showrooms in the city. These stores are all about service. Customers book appointments in advance and arrive to find pre-pulled items in a “curated closet” according to style and size preferences. Customers are offered a glass of champagne while they talk about options with stylists and leave the store empty handed, having only to wait for purchased items to arrive at their doorstep.

Muji

Address: 475 5th Ave.

An aroma lab on the top floor wafts calming scents into the air at this Muji storefront, while soft music plays in the background. The whole store is a pitch for organization, with products carefully set up in boxes, cylinders or other containers. This location also features an embroidery station, where customers can personalize products either for themselves or as gifts.

Nike

Address: 529 Broadway

“Nike is redefining the purpose of physical store evolution in a day where e-commerce is so prevalent,” a spokesperson for McMillanDoolittle told Retail Dive in an email. “They created a retail format that is part store, part brand museum by opening the five-story, 55,000-square-foot space loaded with technology, from customizable sneakers to a Kinect-powered basketball court.”

Outdoor Voices

Address: 251 Centre St.

“This store is a total physical embodiment of the brand. It’s fresh, uncomplicated and relatable. Walking in, you get the brand instantly, the layout is concise and product is color merchandized for ease of shopping,” Smith said.

Phluid

Address: 684 Broadway

This store, which bills itself as “the world’s first gender-free store,” organizes clothing mainly by color, and sizes are listed by number rather than “small,” “medium” and “large.” A section dedicated to makeup uses gender-inclusive marketing, and the space also hosts a coffee shop, some tables and a small hangout area for customers to relax.

The RealReal

Address: 80 Wooster St.

This small, boutique-like location features racks in all sizes that pull out of the walls, leaving the majority of the store open and spacious. There are also collections of clothing marked out by descriptors like “Street Athlete,” “Rare Finds” and “Sleek and Chic,” along with select brands like Burberry, which get their own racks. The downstairs portion of the store also includes a coffee shop and a dining room table-like setup for customers to enjoy a coffee and relax.

Sephora Beauty TIP Workshop

Address: 112 West 34th St.

Opened in April 2017, the store emphasizes beauty services and classes for a more experiential visit that lets shoppers experiment and play with products. Shoppers can get a 15-minute touch-up, 45-minute makeover or 90-minute customized consultation. Classes range from how to contour and highlight to how to identify the right skin care solutions. These concept shops are heralded as a leader in forward-looking experiential retail store concepts.

Sonos

Address: 101 Greene St

The Sonos showroom in SoHo is a small, intimate space filled with small pentagonal rooms for customers to test out the sound quality in by watching film trailers or listening to their favorite music. “They’re totally curated rooms,” Almagro told Retail Dive. “They’ll have a fully-decorated dorm room or a living room where you can just sit down and experience the sound.”

Story

Address: 144 10th Ave.

The store concept, recently acquired by Macy’s, was in between themes when Retail Dive visited in early June, but is always worth a stop when open. “This store changes its entire concept every few months, and the entire assortment switches to match the latest theme,” Smith said. “Events align. Every time the customer goes back, there’s an entirely different experience, which is how destination retail should be.”

Via Retail Dive

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The U.S. retail market has been responding to the rapid growth of Amazon over the last few years. Most retailers have struggled to respond fast enough with a retail market that is scattered with casualties. Amazon has been on an upward trajectory and doesn’t look like it’s stopping anytime soon. This is down to them having an intimate understanding of the customer and heavily investing in innovation and testing.

Because of this I was expecting doom and gloom: the closing of shops and the death of the shopping centre. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Legacy retailers are rallying (albeit slowly) and realising that they need to listen to the customer, understand what they want and really connect, rather than just saying they want to connect. Instead of trying to tell the customer what they should have and trying to force sales in store, there’s a realisation that customers are the ones dictating who the winners and losers will be with their spend. Loyalty is much harder to achieve now.

Below are some observations and key points from the C-suite execs explaining what is giving brick-and-mortar retail the nitrogen boost it needs.

Creating One Journey

The phrase ‘customer-obsessed’ was my favorite repeated retail strategy. Nearly all of the retailers that were winning, expanding and showing positive results used this phrase. We have all heard of omni-channel over the last few years—it is a simple way to get businesses to understand that all channels must work together—but the idea that the customer thinks ‘oh I’m going to shop my mobile channel now’ just doesn’t happen.

We are in a new age of One Journey: a customer will research online, test in store, qualify with their community, then maybe purchase through Instagram and pick up the parcel from their local store. This is something we have integrated into how we design our retail experiences, so it was great to hear so many retailers getting their houses in order and starting to look at the retail experience like the customers do.

A great example of connecting all the touchpoints, in a campaign that connects online marketing to in-store experience and future online purchases, is Levi’s. Realizing that once their customer knew the fit they would easily purchase repeat orders online, they then needed to focus on how to engage with the customer on a human level to keep that face-face interaction that is so critical to long-term success. To do this, they turned their store into a tailor’s.

Carrie Ask, EVP & President, Global Retail at Levi Strauss, explained how they began with two tailors who could customise and adjust your denim. They soon realised this was hugely popular and quickly employed another five tailors. The stories of people getting their customised items was feeding social marketing, driving online sales and getting customers into stores to customise their purchases. It was interesting to hear how at a director level they have changed the way online, retail and marketing connect their budgets. Because it is one streamlined journey they have now pooled their budget with a core focus on building long term relationships with customers.

There was also a whole section mapped out around talks on China. China is a huge market with a rapidly growing e-consumer population. In 2010, China had 140 million online shoppers, the same as the U.S. At its current rate of growth, by 2020 China will have a staggering 891 million online shoppers, compared to 270 million in the U.S. The retailers coming out of China are pioneering omnichannel innovation and nearly all of them were conceived as digital native brands, Alibaba being the standout innovator talking at the show. North America VP & GM Lee McCabe spoke about creating a seamless online-offline experience, which they see as one shopping experience.

Learn, Experiment, Deploy, Repeat

In an age of the fast-paced changing consumer, retailers are learning from their tech brothers and sisters that they need to innovate quickly, fail fast, and try, try and try again. The age-old quote that ‘change is the only constant’ could not be more relevant in this new age of retail. The future customer journey is being hacked and experimented on at pace, to come up with exciting new experiences. Retailers are using the data they are gathering online and in-store to better understand the customer and their path to purchase. They’re also trying to gain emotional intelligence to connect with people’s lifestyles, to be able to serve them better. The experiments being deployed are varying in size from changing the store VM, through online local purchasing habits or inventing new touch points to better engagement to build a human relationship with the customer and their community.

This is something M.Gemi is doing very well. We heard passionately from founder and CEO Ben Fischman about why getting the customer testing right is essential. They are using their showrooms to gain customer data to change their online experience, and visa versa, thus making a more seamless, engaging and efficient customer experience. The online brand realises physical retail is essential to the brand’s success. With this nimble store setup they can go in to test new markets and gather data with limited costs. Why are people doing this? Investing in innovation helps create efficiency, which frees up further budget for experience and connection, which gives sustained long term success.

Focused Experience

Did someone say experience? It was probably the most over-used word across the whole of Shoptalk. The various statistics around customers seeking experience has been rolled out over the last few years, and only now are some of the more established businesses coming to grips with what ‘experience’ means to them.

The majority of digital native brands already know what experience means to them because they are so connected to their customer and to the online data that gets produced. Retailers need to listen to their core customer. What is it that you want to give back to your customer? What is it that will turn a person who likes the product into a advocate who loves the brand? It’s been frustrating to see slow and safe experimentation in this area from the large brick-and-mortar retailers who need the most engagement and reconnection to their customers.

There were a few brands we could have used as an example here, but Sephora seemed to be the one that has its evolving brand experience down to a T. Its community can buy makeup brands wherever they want and search multiple price points, so there needs to be a reason for the shopper to choose a makeup retailer. In the Sephora experience you are welcomed as a guest visiting; retail associates and specialists are trained to advise on all of the products and beauty services. The Beauty Studio is where the customer can happily play with the product or freshen up before their night out. I’ve been to a few Sephora stores since being in the U.S. and it’s nothing but a welcoming engaging experience, even for a non-makeup wearer!

Community Is King

According to Glossier founder Emily Weiss, the secret to online retail success is having strong connections with your community, and that dictates how successful you become as a brand. Glossier has gone from strength to strength after building its online community, and now has Glossier Showrooms where customers come to play with the products, get advice and connect with other members of the Glossier community.

An unbelievably slick presentation deck by Nike talked about how they have created an exciting new platform using data and learning to provide engaging experiences for their community. It connects sneakerheads through AR gaming and offers intriguing ways to find new products scattered across the city virtually. Nike’s Head of Digital Adam Sussman talked about getting back the excitement of hunting out products: being the one to find a new exclusive product and share it with your community.

The SNKRS app has geolocated drops so only local customers can go out find the AR 3D products dotted around different locations. Once you find the product you can share it with your Nike community so they benefit from you finding the drop. This is a great blend of mobile in-app connection, mixed with geolocation, augmented reality and real-life experiences. It builds an excitement and human connection, which in turn builds loyalty and marketing stories of the future.

Inspired Purchase

Instagram, Pinterest, Google Pay, Houzz and eBay all talked about inspiring customers through lifestyle imagery. Instagram is now the new online department store. You can browse all your brands and order them straight from your app. On eBay you can input an image of the product you like and it will find you someone from around the world selling that product. Pinterest will similarly find what you are looking for based on you clicking a product you like in any lifestyle image that you love. “Shop the look” has never been easier, whether that be home, apparel and now even food—in the future, Freshly will order the recipe from an image. Image search is going into its next evolution of artificial intelligence, and we are going to see it, along with voice search, as an essential part of a successful retail experience.

No doubt it is an exciting time to be in retail. The digital revolution has added a new dimension to how we shop and our relationships with the brands we connect with.

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The world of fashion retail is wider than most. From luxury to discount, and fast fashion to handmade, fashion is never one-size-fits-all. And this means that retailers’ strategies can’t be either.

The way we buy fashion is also changing. The physical store is still an important part of the mix, but ecommerce is now a huge consideration, which brings with it its own challenges. Plus, social media is offering another way to shop.

Whatever type of fashion or channels you work with, these 19 recent initiatives from across the industry are sure to inspire you.

1. adidas Originals x BVG Berlin

Earlier this year, the Berlin transit authority BVG launched an unusual collaboration with Adidas – limited edition sneakers with a built-in BVG season pass. As such the wearer (as long as they are wearing the pair of sneakers at the time) will get free travel around pretty much the entire city on trams, buses, ferries and subways for the year. Although the shoes were quite highly priced at €180, the value of the annual travel pass is €728 which means they offer the owner a significant saving. Limited to 500 pairs, the shoes continue the BVG link in their design by mimicking the seat upholstery design used on the company’s train seats. It’s perhaps more of a marketing gimmick than the most practical collaboration, but it shows fashion’s potential to incorporate other functions and services.

2. Net-A-Porter AI personal shopper

Having invested £442 million in technology and personalisation, Net-A-Porter has developed a robot that can select clothes for customers based on their future plans – namely where they are going and the type of trip. The system uses AI to offer the personalised service. The company has also developed another tool that uses AI to put together outfits based on other items a customer has selected. As these technologies get smarter and more effective, AI is going to become a major tool in helping fashion brands offer a more personalised service.

3. Nordstrom Local’s service focus

Nordstrom’s latest retail model is very different to its existing department store offering. The new concept deconstructs the department store into smaller, targeted spaces. The first of these is Nordstrom Local, which is clothing store that stocks no clothes. Instead the small space has a stylish suite and dressing room with personal stylists ordering in products for customers to try. If they want to buy anything it will be shipped to their home. The space also offers alterations and tailoring.

4. Viktor & Rolf and Zalando’s recycled materials collection

Zalando has teamed up with fashion designers Viktor & Rolf to create a collection focused around using recycled materials to make handcrafted garments. Called RE:CYCLE, the new collection consists of 17 pieces of womenswear. The materials come from Zalando’s overstock fabrics, while Viktor & Rolf manage the design. The collection is deliberately priced to be accessible with the idea being that it’s a viable alternative to a customer’s usual purchases. The partnership shows that collaboration may be one way for fashion to fix some of its sustainability issues.

5. MM.Lafleur’s personal stylist

MM.Lafleur’s showrooms operate on something of the same concept as Nordstrom Local. The company runs a successful ecommerce business, but finds that many customers find shopping with a stylist more efficient. Taking that to the next level, MM.Lafleur’s stores don’t hold any inventory, which stops customers wasting time browsing and means they don’t need such a large space. Customers who book an appointment with a personal shopper will arrive to find a dressing room full of carefully selected clothes personalised to their tastes. If they like what they buy they can take it away that day, but most opt to have them delivered to their home. It’s another case of retail becoming more tailored to the customer with brand’s putting in the time to learn about the customer first, so they can offer a better service.

6. The Tie Bar’s data-gathering stores

Menswear brand The Tie Bar is one of the many brands that began life as an online-only operation, but has since moved into physical retail. Notably the company started with pop–up stores, but found they were turning a profit so converted them into permanent stores. However they don’t operate in isolation. The Tie Bar uses the stores to improve its online offering by testing out new products and uses learnings from customers’ in-store stylist sessions to improve its online equivalent. Going the other way, The Tie Bar uses online data about where its customers live and what they buy to decide where to open new stores. It shows that there’s a lot that retail can learn from its various channels in order to refine the overall shopping experience.

7. Nike’s 90 minutes custom sneakers

The Nike By You studio in New York is home to the brand’s new retail experience which lets customers customise a pair of trainers in less than 90 minutes. Known as the Nike Makers’ Experience, the process involves a series of graphic options and patterns, plus colour and size options, to create a design that’s unique to the customer. The experience uses a special model of trainer, the Nike Presto X, which was specifically created for it. Currently the Nike Makers’ Experience is invite only, but it shows just how fast personalisation can be. It’s likely that we’ll see more and more options for customisation in stores, but without customers having to give up a whole day for the experience.

8. Vogue and GQ Amazon Echo Look stylist

Amazon Echo Look’s screen and camera functionality is being put to good use by fashion publications Vogue and GQ. Customers can use the device’s AI stylist to get style suggestions from the magazines by uploading photos from their smartphone. The magazines will also host weekly content on the Echo Look app’s home screen with the ability for customers to click through and buy items. Although Amazon says Vogue and GQ don’t get a cut from any purchases made, it’s the sort of collaboration that you could add such an element to. For the magazines it’s a way of redefining their role in today’s increasingly print-free world.

9. Orchard Mile’s personalised ‘shopping street’

It’s been a slow process but more and more luxury brands are online, whether via their own initiatives or platforms like Net-a-Porter and Farfetch. One company changing how customers shop for these brands is Orchard Mile which lets customers create their own ‘shopping street’. The customer pick their favourite brands to populate the street, They can then click on them and go to a customised website featuring the designer’s entire collection. The aim is to make the experience akin to walking into the brand’s shop. With more choice than ever, ideas like this may help customers with their online shopping by narrowing down the options to certain brands. And customers don’t have to waste time filtering through brands they don’t like.

10. Columbia Sportswear’s personalised engagement

Columbia Sportswear has collaborated with Microsoft to offer a better customer experience. The company uses Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 and Azure cloud services to get insights into how customers respond to products – regardless of the channel used. This then helps Columbia Sportswear to personalise the experience. The technology is also used to improve merchandise management by offering better reporting and analysis. In the drive for personalisation it’s likely more and more retailers will be looking for technology partners to help them achieve their ambitions faster.

11. Stitch Fix’s AI-driven search

Stitch Fix is using artificial intelligence to take the effort out of finding new clothes. Rather than the customer going from store-to-store browsing, the company uses a mix of human personal styling and AI to find and send products directly to customers. It uses customer data to find the products it thinks the individual will like. The AI is constantly learning based on what the customer returns and keeps, which means its recommendation get better and more personalised over time.

12. H&M’s Afound discount marketplace

H&M wlll branch out into discount fashion with the launch of its new marketplace Afound. It marks a whole new chapter for the brand as H&M will allow other fashion labels to be sold on Afound. And of course H&M will use it sell its own unsold inventory. The marketplace will be accessible online and through a physical store in Sweden. The aim is to present a mix of brands at different price points. As customers continue to show their bargain-hunting desires, Afound may help H&M tap into a new audience. Incorporating other brands will help to drive traffic to the site.

13. Untuckit’s RFID merchandise

Casual men’s apparel retailer Untuckit is piloting the use of RFID in its Fifth Avenue store. The company will use the tech to track inventory and see which items are selling best. They can then use this to optimise inventory in real-time. Just as importantly the RFID will show which sizes and styles have low demand enabling Untuckit to remove or improve them. The store can also track staff and shoppers around the store to better understand journeys. It’s a glimpse into how the stores of the future will use tech to make their product ranges as lean and optimised as possible.

14. Zara self-service kiosks

With click-and-collect a well-established part of the retail mix some brands are looking at ways to improve the process. Zara is one of these. It’s testing self-service ‘pickup towers’ in-store which can hold up to 4,000 packages. Customers can use them to retrieve their online orders by scanning a barcode on their phone. The machine then locates and retrieves the package in just a few seconds. Given that most retailers’ click-and-collect services requires customers to queue up at a desk or till to get their items, this technology is a win-win. It makes the process faster for customers and frees up staff to do more important tasks.

15. Miquela Sousa the digital influencer

Miquela Sousa is a 19 year old LA-based model and influencer. So far, so normal. But Sousa is actually a computer-generated figure – and no-one knows who is actually behind her. Still, she has more than 899,000 Instagram followers and fills her feed with images of outfits from brands such as Chanel, Supreme and Vans. Her success raises a question around authenticity, specifically whether it matters if someone is real or not if they are ‘authentic’ in their persona and messaging. Sousa shows that there may also be an opportunity in the future for brands to use digitally created influencers for campaigns – probably for a lower price.

16. LVMH 24sevres multi-brand store

LVMH’s first ecommerce project is 24servres.com, which is a digital realisation of the Le Bon Marche store in Paris. The idea is to extend the physical experience to customers all around the world, including recreating the store’s famous window displays. LVMH also believes that its curated experience is what sets it apart with the brand taking an editorial approach to merchandising the site’s inventory. The project raises a question about how close the digital and physical experiences will get in the future – do customers want to shop on sites that are more like going into a store?

17. Nike+ loyalty scheme

First launched in November 2017, Nike’s latest loyalty programme evolution involves rewarding customers with offers from select partners, including Classpass and Headspace. Customers have to be NIke+ app members to use the scheme. Other perks include things like four free months of Apple Music when buying a certain shoe or colour. In addition, members receive discounts and gifts on purchases throughout their entire birth month. Loyalty schemes are in desperate need of a revamp and this sort of partner-based idea is a good way to keep customers interested. It’s not just about being rewarded by Nike, but also other brands that you might be interested in.

Plus, the opening of Nike’s new New York flagship early next year will add another level to the brand’s loyalty offering. Instead of the usual product merchandising, the fifth floor will solely treat Nike+ members to exclusive services, including unique products, experiences and expert access. Again it’s another reason for customers to become members of the club, which then brings them closer to the brand.

18. Start Today USA at home e-commerce measurement service

The US subsidiary of Japanese fashion brand Start Today is aiming to change the way we buy online with its new at-home measurement device. The ZOZOsuit is an enhanced suit that uses sensor technology to capture 15,000 measurements from all over the wearer’s body. The data is then sent by bluetooth to the accompanying ZOZO app. Customers can then shop Start Today’s products and get recommendations on what will fit based on their exact measurements. While it’s quite an advanced solution to the issue of online purchases not fitting, it’s likely that individual customer measurements will become an integral part of ecommerce in the future.

19. Direct-to-consumer luxury WARDROBE.NYC

WARDROBE.NYC is a luxury direct-to-consumer label from designer Josh Goot and stylist Christine Centenera. While that’s an unusual model in itself for luxury fashion, the brand sells clothes as ‘wardrobes’ with customers having the choice or four or eight seasonal essentials costing £1,104 and £2,208 respectively. Catering for both men and women it’s an interesting look at where luxury fashion could go in the future by offering high quality products, curated into capsule wardrobes at a lower price.

What’s the future of fashion retail?

Personalisation and customisation are perhaps the biggest areas for fashion retailers to be paying attention to. The good things it that these types of services can take any number of forms, depending on the retailer and the customer. Some brands are using tech, some are using expert staff, some are using data between different channels, but they’re all trying to offer something that’s more focused on the individual.

Once you start providing customers with a more personal experience you’re likely to reap the benefits elsewhere in terms of loyalty. No-one wants to leave a brand that ‘gets’ them for one that doesn’t. And the more you know about your customers the more you can improve your business overall because you know what they want. If fashion retail does nothing else, it should start getting personal.
Via Insider-Trends

The post Fashion Retail Gets Personal appeared first on This Is Retail.

It’s been a busy few months in London in terms of retail. With the Westfield White City expansion complete, there was the opportunity for lots of new retailers to move in and move in they have. Here’s the most innovative openings during March and April.

Ted Baker: Colour by Numbers

Starting with a long-term pop-up from Ted Baker that celebrates its new ‘Colour By Numbers’ collection. Located in prime position at Old Street station, the new store takes inspiration from contemporary art galleries.

The label’s capsule collection is available to buy at the colourful store and includes a special gift with every purchase. However, steering away from the conventional shop, there will also be events and activities scheduled in the pop-up. A multi-sensory restorative yoga class will be on offer every Wednesday from ChromaYoga who specialise in combining light and colour therapy techniques and there will be various discussions and styling events as well as treatments from Ted’s Beauty Spot.

John Lewis

John Lewis has opened its 50th store in the new Westfield White City expansion, a 230,000-square-foot space with a different approach to its other stores, namely its Oxford Street flagship.

Airy shop fits, beautifully lit counters, new services and fresher labels fill the store with a focus on bringing the luxury department store back. An ‘Experience Desk’offers personal services, where a hub of seven staff will be on hand to organise nine different services for customers including style studio sessions with stylists trained by ex-Vogue fashion director Lucinda Chambers. You can even have afternoon tea while you get advised!

A Denim Wardrobe by Trilogy, a team of denim experts, also aims to find customers the perfect pair of jeans. The idea being that these services actually get problems solved and make the shopping experience much more fun.

Naturally

Naturally, a new grocery retailer focusing on simple and fresh food, has opened the doors to its new London store on Holloway Road. Working with Form Room to create the brand identity and design the UK store rollout, Naturally is crafted around three brand pillars of ‘Quality, Transparency and Community’. Each of Naturally’s produce can be traced across its journey from Europe to the shop floor.

The store itself is designed to change to work with day-to-day shop life or special events, even adaptable to a changing customer journey. A community table and window table encourage dwell time and interaction with staff who act as advisors, rather than sellers. An exterior cart takes the brand outside the store to offer seasonal tastings to locals.

The ‘Naturally Mine’ loyalty scheme is core to the brand community, which offers experience rewards such as a Supper Club or a Meet The Makers taster sessions. This is a store with the community at its heart and we are keen to see how it works out.

Realbuzz

Sportswear retailer Realbuzz has launched a 3,000-square-foot concept store in Covent Garden’s Seven Dials, with further stores opening in Westfield Stratford, Regent Street and Kensington in just a few months. What a growth!

The Seven Dials store will feature interactive screens, in-store health and fitness classes and educational zones as part of its customer experience offering. Focusing on youth fashion, the store will directly cater to those invested in sportswear as daywear.

The Entertainer

The Entertainer, the fastest growing multichannel toy retailer in the UK, has relaunched its global flagship store at Westfield London following a £700,000 refit.

Designed to create an immersive play experience for kids, the 4500-square-foot store offers children an engaging, exciting and more entertaining shopping experience. The in-store journey is led by new technologies such as animated window screens, interactive floor projections, augmented reality mirrors and ‘The Launch Pad’ tech tables.

By combining the child’s experience with an engaging shop, The Entertainer is looking to put the magic back into the toy shopping experience – we just can’t wait to see what they do for Christmas!

Adidas

Adidas has opened a new “stadium concept” store as part of the much anticipated Westfield expansion. Customers enter the store via a players’ tunnel entrance, with additional concept features including locker-style rooms for trying on kit and outward-facing stadium seating allowing views all over the new Westfield London Shopping Centre.

As well as housing the brand’s Originals and Performance ranges, the multi-level sporting space has state-of-the-art “Test & Create” areas in the football and running zones, where customers are encouraged to take products for a test run. On the store’s opening day visitors can experience live Adidas shoe customisation by artists and take part in lace bar masterclasses run by style experts.

Harriet Kelsall

Harriet Kelsall Bespoke Jewellery has opened its first London store, located on Regent’s Park Road in Primrose Hill, marking its third store in the UK.

Designed by Lumsden Design, the 47-square-metre store offers customers the opportunity to meet with qualified designers to create truly bespoke and ethical pieces of jewellery. With an urban aesthetic, the shop functions as both a retail environment and a working design studio for the team.

Customers are encouraged to interact with ‘discovery drawers’ mounted on the wall. Colours inspired by a gemstone chart are represented on the drawers, each of which has a bespoke metal handle and contains a themed mood board to inspire creative thoughts and ideas.

A flexible wall system with metal uprights, combined with timber display boxes and shelves, are used to showcase product and storage for designers and a designer consultation area sits at the back of the store. For this brand, it’s all about the story.
Via Insider Trends

The post What’s Hot in London Right Now appeared first on This Is Retail.

According to a study by Juniper Research, global spend on artificial intelligence or AI is expected to increase from an estimated $2 billion in 2018 to $7.3 billion per year by 2022. Pair that with the fact that, according to PointSource, 34% of consumers will spend more money online when AI is deployed effectively, and you realise that for retailers, AI is big business.

With that in mind, here are 50 ways in which retailers are putting AI into action, from personalising beauty to forecasting demand.

Beauty

1. Sephora’s Virtual Artist app

While the predominant function of Sephora’s Virtual Artist app is to allow beauty buyers to try on products virtually via augmented reality, the brand recently introduced a colour match tool, powered by AI. This tool determines the particular shade of a product on a photo and suggests similar products available at Sephora that the consumer can then try on and purchase.

2. Olay’s Skin Advisor

If there’s one sector where AI has been making a lot of noise, it’s beauty. Olay’s Skin Advisor is an online consultation platform that can tell the true age of a user’s skin from a selfie. By using AI to both evaluate and determine problem areas, as well as the overall condition of the skin, it also provides personalised skincare routines and reports.

3. My Beauty Matches’s personalised beauty

With over 170 retail partners and 300,000 products, My Beauty Matches claims to be the world’s first personalised beauty product recommendation and price comparison site, and is dedicated to ramping up conversion rates and increasing basket sizes for other brands. More specifically, it uses AI to help partners including Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Bobbi Brown run hyper-targeted campaigns to people wanting personalised beauty suggestions.

4. L’Oreal’s 3D hair colour app

As several of the beauty-led examples on this list have shown, AI’s fusion with other technologies such as augmented reality means it is entering new territory. L’Oreal’s newly announced AR hair colour app, created in partnership with Modiface, allows users to try on a new hair colour in real time. While the AR component allows customers to try on different styles digitally, it’s the introduction of AI that captures the user’s hair, strand by strand, to offer the most accurate look possible.

5. Function of Beauty’s personalised products

Function of Beauty is a beauty start-up that lets customers create custom shampoos and conditioners based on their personal hair type and hair goals. After gleaning data from a quiz that builds an individual hair profile, determines future goals and what you want the end product to look and smell like, the brand produces an end product via AI from a possible 12 billion different ingredient combinations.

6. Proven’s stand on fake reviews

Proven is a newly launched beauty brand that uses AI to provide the most personalised offering possible. Rather than sifting through products, it searches through reviews of those products to offer individual skincare routines. To date it has been reported that the brand’s tool has analysed 8 million skincare product reviews in order to eliminate fake reviews, save time for consumers and offer personalised recommendations that actually matter.

Marketing and Communication

7. Ometria’s AI-powered marketing

With a belief that generic marketing makes brands forgettable, Ometria works to create memorable marketing experiences. It works by combining AI-powered customer data with retail-specific marketing data to create an effective strategy for brands. According to the company, Ometria was able to ‘win back’ 107% of furniture retailer LuxDeco’s customers and increased fashion company Seraphine’s email channel revenue by 60%.

8. Cosabella and Albert

In 2017, lingerie brand Cosabella announced that they would be using Albert, an AI technology, to help the brand implement a new strategy as its new digital agency. As well as identifying emerging user behaviour across various channels to deliver key insights, Albert is reported to have achieved a 336% return on ad spend, a 155% increase in direct revenue and a 37% increase in overall web sessions.

9. Zalando’s AI restructure

Just last month it was announced that e-commerce giant Zalando, which employs over 14,000 people, replaced 250 marketing jobs with AI. As part of a wider restructuring of the company, it goes to show how much emphasis, particularly when it comes to marketing, that the company is putting in technology. ‘Marketing will become increasingly data-based in the future,’ said Rubin Ritter of Zalando’s management board. ‘Therefore, we need a higher number of developers and data analysts.’

10. IKEA’s AI survey

While IKEA is well-known for its exploration of technology, the brand decided to explore AI in a global survey to inform the brand’s future. Created with Space10, IKEA’s innovation lab, it asked questions such as whether AI should be ‘protective or obedient’, and which gender an AI assistant should be. The results of the survey are said to be used to inform IKEA’s future AI products.

11. Persado’s AI-generated language

Described as ‘The Marketing Language Cloud’, Persado is an AI solution that uncovers and generates language for a retailer’s specific audience in the hopes of driving short-term sales and long-term relationships. With a current focus on email and social media channels, marketers can use the tool to predict response rates, generate better marketing pushes and refine their brand’s tone of voice.

12. ALDO’s 360 vision

As part of a collaboration with Salesforce, ALDO is utilising AI so as to better understand and engage with their customer base, with the ability to anticipate their needs and expectations and interact with them on the channel that suits them best. As a statement on the Salesforce website reads, ‘Salesforce now allows ALDO to have a 360-degree vision of its customers. In the future, the company will be able to use information from Salesforce to create synergies between physical and digital channels, allowing them to interact in a fluid and personalised manner with their customers anywhere in the world.’

13. Zeta’s Marketing Platform

Zeta is an AI-driven marketing platform that wants to help brands acquire, retain and grow relationships with their customers. It does so by connecting experiences across channels, building customer knowledge through data and creating discussions within a specific user community. Using the tool, Zeta claims that brands have seen twice the number of page views, four times the number of email sign-ups and a rise of 154% when it comes to email revenue.

14. Room & Board

When furniture brand Room & Board introduced Salesforce’s Predictive Intelligence into its offering, the brand saw a huge 2,900% return on investment within the first year. With data gleaned from customers since 2009, the company can make informed recommendations on its website and in personalised email campaigns. ‘Customers who engage with Room & Board’s recommendations place web orders with 40% higher average values than those who don’t. When customers view those recommendations before coming into the store, the average order value shoots up 60%,’ reads a statement on Salesforce’s website.

15. Satisfi Labs

Through the use of AI, Satisfi Labs gives retailers new ways to engage with their customers via branded chats. Specifically engineered to interact with numerous data sources across different online platforms, the company facilitated two million AI conversations in 2017.

Search and Inspiration

16. Neiman Marcus’s Snap.Find.Shop. app

Luxury department store Neiman Marcus harnessed AI to develop Snap. Find. Shop., an app that allows shoppers to search for Neiman Marcus products through photographs they take while out and about. So, for example, if a user sees a pair of shoes they like the look of, they can take a picture using the dedicated app, which will then recommend similar shoes available on the Neiman Marcus store.

17. Target’s Pinterest partnership

Towards the end of last year, Target announced a partnership with Pinterest that would see it add the social media channel’s visual search tool to its app and website. The result allows users to take a photograph of any product whilst out before being recommended products that are similar and available at Target. It follows the launch of Pinterest’s Pinterest Lens, which wants to encourage discovery by offering suggestions from objects users point their cameras at.

18. West Elm’s Pinterest Style Finder

Last year, furniture retailer West Elm unveiled its Pinterest Style Finder. By using AI, the tool scans a user’s personal Pinterest boards to curate a list of products personalised to that person. It is said to be an extension of the in-store service wherein staff ask visitors for pictures as a starting point for inspiration. And, unlike some of the other AI-powered recommendation tools on this list, it goes by Pinterest boards instead of browsing history so it can really get to grips with personal tastes.

19. Knorr’s Instagram integration

A couple of months back, food and drinks brand Knorr launched an AI-powered tool that scans Instagram feeds in order to recommend personalised meals. ‘We’re excited to be the first Instagram inspired recipe solution. Using our consumers’ own posts to prompt recipes with real value and relevance we know they’ll love,’ says Philippa Atkinson, senior brand manager at Knorr UK and Ireland on the launch.

20. GoFind.ai’s shoppable searches

With a mission to make everything you see shoppable, GoFind is a visual search engine for shopping. By using advanced AI search capabilities combined with one of the largest e-commerce catalogues, users can take a picture of a product in the real world to get shoppable branded product recommendations. Not only that, but the company offers brands user behaviour insights and the direct opportunity for monetisation.

Logistics

21. Wheelys’ moveable market

Through a fusing of AI and convenience-led thinking, Wheelys’ Moby Store has been hailed as the grocery store of the future. Functioning as a store on wheels, the space is open 24 hours, is both staffless and checkoutless and drives itself to warehouses to restock. It even uses AI in the creation of a digital hologram that greets visitors on entry.

22. Otto Group’s inventory management

E-commerce heavyweight Otto Group utilises Blue Yonder, a cloud-based predictive machine-learning application to boost revenues, increase margins and respond to shifts in the market. As a result, not only are out-of-stock rates reduced by up to 80% and product availabilities increased tenfold, but the entire supply chain is optimised and there’s less end-of-season waste.

23. Ocado’s fraud detection

Only a few months ago, Ocado unveiled what is said to be the world’s first AI-based fraud detection system for online grocery shopping. It has been introduced as part of the brand’s Ocado Smart Platform, which is a solution developed by the brand for use by other retailers.

24. Walmart’s supply chain optimisation

While Walmart is looking to AI to optimise a number of processes, from checkout-less commerce to Pick Up Towers in stores, it also recently launched a delivery programme to conquer the last mile problem. Described as being an Uber-like system, it uses data to determine who should deliver what, as well as streamline inventory management.

25. Kohl’s AI investment

While Kohl’s has long been known as a retailer utilising AI to better assist its consumers, the brand has recently announced that it’s targeting AI as a key future initiative. Especially with the company currently in the process of strategically moving systems from dedicated data centres to Cloud Computing, it wants to use AI to streamline its operation, save costs, assist its customers and open up new investment opportunities.

26. JD.com‘s predictive push

In an interview with AI Business last September, Dr. Hui Cheng, head of JD.com’s JD-X robotics research centre, said that JD.com is ‘putting AI to practical use in every aspect of our business, from supply chain to logistics to consumer products and marketing’. While it’s clear both Cheng and JD are betting big on AI’s future, it’s the brand’s integration of AI into the supply chain that’s particularly interesting. With the introduction of the technology, the brand is able to deliver over 92% of orders with same and next day delivery, can effectively predict future demand and is bringing fully-autonomous warehouses online.

27. Infor’s reinvention of retail

Placing AI and analytics at the top of its strategy foundation, Infor is a company helping brands across all manner of sectors put networked analytics and AI-led experiences into practice. When that comes to retail specifically, the company is helping retailers with demand management, enterprise asset management and workforce management, to name just a few.

Chatbots

28. eBay’s personal shopper

Described as your own personal shopper, ShopBot is eBay’s chatbot. Currently in beta-testing, the bot helps people find the best deals from eBay’s often overwhelming number of listings. ‘Combining AI with eBay’s breadth of inventory and unique selection will enable us to create a radically better and more personal shopping experience for virtually anyone that owns a mobile phone,’ reads a statement from eBay.

29. Shop Direct’s Whatsapp integration

In 2016, Shop Direct became the first UK-based retailer to deliver effective customer service through a WhatsApp-style conversational user interface. Titled Very Assistant, the service was developed with IBM Watson to allow customers to find answers to questions through multiple choice within a natural chat environment.

30. North Face’s product recommendation

North Face is another brand utilising AI to help consumers find the items that are right for them. As the first experience to put IBM Watson’s power to the test on mobile, the app prompts a voice-activated conversation to determine what a user might need by posing a number of questions surrounding location, temperature and gender.

31. Taco Bell’s Tacobot chatbot

With the launch of its Tacobot, Taco Bell became the first brand to let users order food directly through work-based messaging service Slack. By leveraging AI to facilitate orders through natural language, the chatbot talked in the witty tone of voice the brand is known for, and let users both customise and group order products. According to Taco Bell, the bot is currently in a stage of beta testing with a number of different companies.

32. Levi’s Virtual Stylist

Launched in collaboration with Mode.ai on Facebook’s Messenger app, Levi’s Virtual Stylist does exactly that, and aims to put the knowledge of all the brand’s in-store associates into one place. As well as offering fashion advice, it’s powered by personalised fit data from True Fit and has been designed to respond to people in a conversational tone akin to in-store advice.

33. Soul Machines

Soul Machines is on a mission to humanise computing by combining the expertise of AI researchers, neuroscientists, psychologists, artists and innovative thinkers. One result to have come out of the company is AVA, or Autodesk Virtual Agent. While it works in the same way a chatbot would, offering positive customer service, its success comes in the fact that it allows consumers to interact with something that looks and feels human.

34. The GWYN Experience

To coincide with Mothers Day of 2016, 1-800-FLOWERS.COM released GWYN, or Gifts When You Need, as an AI-powered gift concierge. As well as guiding customers through their shopping experience, the system learns and refines recommendations over time. ‘By using Watson, the cognitive capabilities of GWYN are enabling 1-800-FLOWERS.COM to offer a more personalised and intuitive online shopping experience, and foster new levels of brand engagement,’ said Keith Mercier, retail leader at IBM Watson, who 1-800 worked with on the project.

35. Nike On Demand

In 2017, Nike launched Nike On Demand, an AI-powered assistant to help people exercise more and reach their performance goals. The tool itself harnessed data gleaned from running activity and sent personalised motivational messages so as to feel like the user was getting one-on-one training. Over the six week campaign, 22,000 messages were exchanged with Nike On Demand users, showing the potential power of getting AI right.

Fashion

36. Entrupy’s fight against counterfeits

Entrupy is an authentication system for luxury fashion products, and uses AI to determine whether a product is real or counterfeit through millions of images. According to the brand it has a success rate of 98.5%. It has been reported that Burberry, one of the most counterfeited luxury brands in the world, is using Entrupy to help take a stand against counterfeiters.

37. StitchFix’s range of AI-designed garments

When you think of AI, fashion design might not be the first thing that comes to mind. That said, AI design is on the rise. StitchFix, a subscription-based fashion company, recently introduced Hybrid Designs, a collection of clothing created from consumer data. By identifying which design traits are working well at any given time, as well as any gaps in the company’s inventory, the brand can design and create garments reactively to consumer opinion.

38. ThredUp’s tailor-made Goody Boxes

In December of last year, online retailer ThredUp unveiled Goody Boxes, a box of secondhand garments where consumers keep what they like and return what they don’t. While the initiative itself is a non-subscription, non-commitment offer, the introduction of AI means the brand remembers what the customer has chosen to return so it can tailor future boxes more closely to the customer’s personal preference.

39. FINDMINE’s look completion

With its automated ‘Complete The Look’ technology, FINDMINE fuses styling knowledge with technology to produce complete outfits around products on sale. The company reports that use of the system improves efficiency for merchandisers by 100 times.

40. Tommy Hilfiger’s design inspiration

Tommy Hilfiger is another company looking into the potential of AI design. At the beginning of this year, the fashion brand collaborated with IBM and The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) on a project named Reimagine Retail. With an aim to explore how AI can enhance design inspiration and improve manufacturing and marketing, Tommy Hilfiger’s library of images and patterns provided data about key patterns and design traits from which the students created original designs.

41. Amazon’s AI fashion

And, naturally, Amazon wants in on the action. Reports show that researchers at the brand are working on AI systems that both track and then react to current design trends. So far, a team at Amazon’s Lab126 has developed an algorithm that creates garments based on data gleaned from vast amounts of fashion imagery.

42. Alibaba’s FashionAI platform

By recognising both the details that separate different garments and the shopping habits of countless consumers, FashionAI is a new tool from online giant Alibaba that acts as a personal stylist for brick-and-mortar shoppers. The tool itself provides personalised recommendations for customers based on the items they are trying on through the item’s tag.

43. Vue.AI’s model generator

Last month, Vue.AI announced that it had launched the world’s first AI-based human model generator. By analysing garments and automatically generating a human model based on them, the innovation is both offering the opportunity to personalise the model’s appearance to the user, and helping retailers cut costs that would have otherwise gone on product photography and retouching.

44. adidas’s localised designs

When adidas unveiled its Speedfactory, an innovation capable of significantly reducing the time it takes to produce sneakers and the number required to make it worthwhile, it was a game-changer for the production industry. However, with the integration of data-led innovation, it’s also able to create location-specific designs. By using athlete data from consumers in different cities, the brand has made footwear tailored to conditions in cities such as London, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Physical Retail

45. Bodega’s AI-driven essentials

By using both computer vision systems and AI, Bodega is an autonomous store bringing relevant essentials to places where people need them. So in a gym it might sell protein bars and at a university campus, stationery. It works through a dedicated app, where users open the mini-store with a three-digit passcode and take the item they want before their account is charged automatically. With cameras tracking every move, stock demand and replenishment can become optimised over time.

46. Sprucebot’s AI organiser

Sprucebot is a bot that wants to revolutionise the way the physical store runs. From automating administrative work, such as work shifts or helping guests book appointments, to collecting actionable feedback from consumers, it utilises AI to grow and adapt smaller businesses in all manner of ways.

47. DeepMagic’s future store formats

Powered by AI, DeepMagic has developed a fully automated store format that allows merchants to run staffless stores, save costs and eliminate shrinkage without losing the essence of experience.

48. Conversica’s push for sales

Described by the brand as an automated sales assistant, Conversica uses AI to not only identify potential opportunities to push sales, but ensures every lead that comes from an online source is followed up. And, as the messages sent are conversational in content, the brand states that, on average, 35% of all leads reply. Alongside that, the assistant can schedule appointments, follow up on old leads and gather customer feedback.

49. Macy’s On Call app

In 2016, Macy’s teamed up with IBM Watson to launch a shopping assistant powered by AI for in-store shoppers. Titled Macy’s On Call, the app works to help customers get answers to questions on queries tailored to the store they’re in. So, for example, it could help locate a particular product in store, or find out if an item is in stock or not. The overall goal, according to Macy’s group vice president of digital media strategy, was to boost sales and free up employee time so they could focus on more complicated consumer requests.

50. Amazon Go

No list of current AI retail innovations would be complete without the mention of Amazon Go. Since the major brand announced its checkout-free, walk-out store, the internet has been abuzz with its developments. It’s the activation of AI on its automated checkouts and product tracking elements though that make this a one to watch.

Via Insider-Trends

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The sports brand has designed the 5,484 sq ft ‘HomeCourt’ store so shoppers feel like they are in a sports arena.

The store entrance is designed to look like a stadium tunnel and customers enter to sounds of cheering crowds, so they feel like football players running out on to the pitch.

At the middle of the store is the Adidas Shoebase which features an interactive table with two big touchscreens to help customers find the right product. It is also connected directly to Adidas’ online shop.

The store caters for different sports including football, basketball and running.

It is the second store of its type in the world after Adidas launched the format in Beijing earlier this year.

To celebrate the launch shoppers will be given the chance to meet some of the stars from West Ham football club.

Adidas UK own retail director Rupert Campbell said: “We’re committed to constant innovation within our retail space, looking for ways to offer our customers a unique shopping experience. We are really excited about our HomeCourt concept as it gives consumers the opportunity to experience the entire breadth and depth of the Adidas brand in a sports performance led environment.

“Bluewater was the perfect destination for the first store of its kind in the UK due the vast customer base that it services across the South East of England and the already premium shopping experience that it offers.”

The store opening also coincides with the World Cup which starts in June.

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For this engaging branding project, local influencers and creators in cities including Berlin, Milan, Oslo, Tokyo and NYC have been given a blank canvas to put together a WSP event and fill it with their creativity.

The first segment kicked off in New York City with fashion-forward personalities Coco + Breezy and musical sensation Yuna Zarai. In conjunction to this special initiative, adidas originals SoHo flagship will play host to a music/fashion event with all of the project’s participants this coming April 24th. Attendees will get the opportunity to see of the speciality designs in person, as well as interact with Coco + Breezy and hear  Yuna Zarai  performing live.

See the first installment of adidas Originals White Space Project below.

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