EBay Partners with Fashion Brand to Create Future of Retail

EBay has teamed up with fashion brand Rebecca Minkoff to create the retail store of the future complete with technology designed to enhance a shopper’s in-store experience. With locations in San Francisco and New York, the two companies hope to bring the best of the online world into the physical retail space. In each store, customers have access to touchscreen displays on the store’s mirrors and in the fitting rooms that offer an interactive shopping experience.

news_02_smallShoppers can activate a display projected to one of the store’s mirrors. From there, shoppers can browse through the store’s entire collection, identify which items they wish to try on and request a fitting room. Once a shopper has completed his or her browsing experience, they receive a notification of when a fitting room is available.

Shoppers then enter the fitting room, try on the clothing, and from there can interact with another digital display to adjust the room’s lighting, pull up recommended accessories, request additional clothes and even complete a transaction.

According to Wired, eBay’s decision to partner with Minkoff is a part of the company’s strategy to “becoming a venue for all commerce,” especially in the physical retail space that it believes will never cease to exist.

The connected stores include a feature that “will ‘recognize’ users of its mobile app, allowing staff to see who’s in the store and what they’ve bought,” notes the article. The idea is that sales associates can anticipate customer demands and make appropriate recommendations.

Wired reports that eBay had been experimenting with an app called eBay Now that let customers place orders at physical retail shops and drivers would deliver orders the same day. There is speculation that eBay may return to the app in the future, but for now the focus seems to be directed to these new digital interactive stores.

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