Next-Gen Shopping on Innovation Boulevard

I don’t know about you, but while I love being able to browse my favourite store’s latest range from the comfort of my sofa, the hands-on experience that I get from a visit to the store itself is also still very appealing. What’s great about today’s retail landscape is that we have the opportunity to do both. The way we try and buy items from our favourite brands is no longer dictated by the opening hours or stock levels in our local high street store.

While this is good news for the consumer, the battle is on for high street retailers. To entice as many shoppers as possible through their doors, retailers need to offer a totally unique shopping experience – something that will convince you and me to put down our tablets and head to the high street.

Personalized, anytime shopping on the streets of Antwerp

Digitopia, a digital retail solution provider in Belgium, is working with Intel to build devices and apps that retailers can use to create more compelling shopping experiences. By trailing different solutions in various retail environments on Antwerp’s most popular shopping street, Digitopia is helping retailers to define which technologies work best in each different store scenario.

On Innovation Boulevard, as Digitopia has dubbed it, shoppers can turn their phone into a remote control to browse holidays on a large screen in the travel agent’s window. They can use an interactive fitting room in a fashion boutique to check for alternative colors and sizes of the outfits they are trying on. It’s even possible to order and pay for their cafe refreshments with a smartphone app rather than queuing up in the store. A large number of the solutions are powered by Intel technologies.

For shoppers, the retail experience is smoother and more personalized. Importantly, the technologies are also helping retailers to increase sales, offer new services and continue to interact with their customers when the shops are closed.

You can read more about the exciting retail experience that Digitopia has created in our new case study. My personal favorite is the possibility to book a holiday while walking between shops – what’s yours?

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