Smart Mirrors Set To Revolutionize Retail Shopping Experience

While the research says more than 90% of customers still prefer shopping in-store, bricks and mortar stores have been facing a tough challenge in the past few years from the rise of Online Shopping.

Retailers have been trying different ways to drive more foot traffic and trying to turn their stores into an “Experience Store” rather than just a stocking store.

The Party People, Australia’s largest party store is one of the first to adapt to the “Experiential Shopping” by using these smart mirrors.

We had a Q&A session with Dean Salakas, CEO of The Party People and this is what he had to say.

Tell us something about your new store?

Its Australia’s largest and only Halloween pop up megastore with over 10,000 Halloween decorations, candy and costumes. Its in the old toy’s r us store at Westfield Knox Victoria.

Why are you using Smart Mirrors at the store and what benefits you see in it for your store ?

Trying on costumes is fun for some and a nightmare for others because you just don’t really know what you want. Each change can take 10-15 minutes with some costumes due to all the pieces, accessories and parts to the costumes. Smart mirrors just make sense in being a technology that will help customer consider a large variety of costumes without putting them on. Most people currently look at each packed to see what the costume is and that packet has a model which is often a different body shape meaning that the customer has to try the costume on to get a better indication if it will work for them and the mirror helps out with that dilemma.

What you like about the Mirrors and what benefits do you think you and customers will get out of it?

The benefits to the customer – Try on many costumes very quickly without needing to get changed. Many people do feel uncomfortable changing in change rooms as not everybody likes getting undressed anywhere but their own home.

The benefits to the retailer – Repackaging costumes is very time consuming, you need to check all the pieces are there, ensure no marks or damage and then pack into the packet and return to the shelf. Folding costumes is many of my staff’s most hated role in the store. Magic mirrors allow customers to try costumes on without taking them out of the packet.

The Smart Mirrors will not only let the customers try-on costumes virtually but will let us give the full inventory access to the customers at one point, get try-on analytics for better stocking and various other advantages like cross-sell and up-sell to increase sales.