World-class designer Rebeca Minkoff is no stranger to breaking boundaries in women’s fashions. Her partnership with eBay back in 2011 using the Magento platform has proven so successful that Minkoff plans to delve further into uncharted territory in the coming year. What’s her latest venture? Ms. Minkoff will be taking high-fashion into the world of smart technology.
Rodeo Drive meets Silicon Valley.
The first two stores are located in San Francisco and New York. Think of these new storefronts as a cross between an exclusive Rodeo Drive-like boutique and a highly optimized Magento-based e-commerce site. With the Magento software, the likes, dislikes, purchases, and searching preferences of each individual customer that walks through the door will be catalogued in real-time.
Each location features a massive, oversized video screen where customers can sort through Minkoff’s fashion line, choose the selections that they want to try on, and type in their preferred sizes. Once the clothing items are gathered and sent to a plush fitting room nearby, the customer is sent a text message via smartphone. Inside the fitting room is another smaller video screen where additional clothing and accessories can be requested at any time.
The individual clothing items are even outfitted with specially designed radio-frequency ID tags that track which items are actually tried on by the customer and which ones were not. All of this highly sensitive data is stored and inventoried, helping Minkoff to determine which of her designs are getting the most consumer buzz. Meanwhile, the shop employees are monitoring everything from handy iPads, even using them to ring up the final purchases.
Amazon is watching.
The success of her previous eBay Magento collaboration has Minkoff’s hopes soaring for this newest technological endeavor. And she is not alone. Bloomingdale’s and Burberry are also launching tech-boutiques in limited locations as well. And Amazon is expected to enter the “brick and mortar” world of shopping with a store opening soon in New York City.
Minkoff and eBay believe that their e-commerce Magento software will fully automate the consumer shopping process best while simultaneously providing real-time insight into the mind of the average shopper. And even Amazon is watching how well these new Magento-enhanced smart-stores perform.