An easy purchase
We had dinner the other night on the lower east side because we were going to see a show at the Bowery Ballroom. After dinner we walked over to the concert and passed the Kate Spade shop.
This store is essentially an oversized iPad showing the merchandise available for delivery within an hour. On the right hand side is another oversized iPad but not as big where the transaction takes place. I stood there and watched a woman buy something and continue walking.
Briliant on so many levels. I have written before in how I am a big believer in the 80/20 ecommerce platform where 80% of the business will take place on line and the other 20% in brick and mortar type stores. Type is the optimal word here. It could be a pop-up that is only around for a month or a wall on the street that captures the consumer attention. That purchase becomes social and fun.
Brilliant.
Comments (Archived):
Great bloggers think alike. I have had photos of this on my cellphone for four weeks. I kid you not. It is next door to my old office. I kept meaning to blog it. Now I will just tweet yours! I meant to buy something too, but never did.
Good thing I needed a haircut today or I would have missed this altogether.
innovation spreads slower than we all think…
I don’ think that in this case that’s the reality, although true generally.
I remember clearly in late ’99 just before Y2K everyone talking about the idea of a phone that was also a camera and could also do a bunch of other stuff… Now people are talking about “wearables”… The mobile tectonic goldmine is here now and will be here to capture for years… I completely agree with your above comment. Timing is everything and people often rush to what is next instead of focusing on what is in the here and now. That said, the pop-up thing has been around for years in the restaurant space and it makes sense in retail as well. I’ll bet anything that mobile leads the way.
mobil is going to definitely lead the way. agree
My take on this.A bit different.Mobile popup stores… http://awe.sm/aG8l6
great piece.
Thanks…This topic touches all my buttons and really fun to write about.
Just saw this in Meat Packing District them saw yr post.I’ll link you my post on the same with my twist when written.
.This is an interesting blend of physical real estate — proximity to impulse buyers in the real world walking down the street — and intellectual or Internet real estate in the digital world. Folks walking down the digital street.This evolution and melding of both the physical and digital is going to be a very interesting process. Folks like PiperLime have done this in their stores to great success and they are not some innovative fledgling startup.I recently looked at a deal for a restaurant ordering service that combined the internet, local geolocation, ordering and feedback (reputation management).I saw a demo of it and it is difficult to see how this will not work like a charm. It used NFC and/or Bluetooth to identify your location so finely that it could differentiate between seats in a single booth.You ordered (pics of every food item and a description on the site with calorie content and other nutritional info), it acknowledged and then the wait staff brought the food to your table. All at the same time.If you did not have a smartphone or tablet, you got one at your seat.You could pay digitally and you could visit with a person via video capabilities, so you had the notion of dealing with a live person if you wanted to.Interestingly enough the ability to pay immediately has been shown through focus groups to be the single most attractive function.It has a learning capability in that it could identify your orders from previous visits coupled with a customer loyalty program. It also had a reputation management system with statistics (think Yelp with data).It has a 4square checkin capability also.I was totally captivated and transfixed.JLM.
the future..
So true.A few years ago after seeing a window sign I ended up buying my wife (to be) some charm bracelets. I told the store owner he should have some LCD’s in the window with other merchandise so I could browse before coming in to the store or I could see other things that piqued my interest. (This jeweler was located next to a starbucks and I passed in literally every day – until I saw the one printed sign I had no reason to go in there). As to be expected he sort of looked at me as if to say “oh sure” but he had no clue on how to make it happen. Doing this would be trivially easy (pictures of your products and an ipad (now) or a small cheap laptop (back when this happened maybe 4 years ago.)I feel the same way when I’m in a restaurant there should be a simple way to see what the dishes look like you always do that anyway when one passes for another patron. Back in the day chinese restaurants used to do a mediocre job of this with pictures. I’ve seen some sushi restaurants do this but they don’t execute well. They have some photo screen scrolling pictures of their dishes but you don’t know the name and the pictures are pretty bad.
The logistics of realtime (roving) delivery are a huge opportunity. I’d love to ping a delivery company one hour/day/week after a purchase and have them be responsible for packaging and returning products.Order a shirt on the way to work, have it arrive by lunch at my office, and have them pick it up for return in the evening from my home.