As discussed in our articles on
Augmented Reality
and Online Medicine
Cabinet, building bridges between the virtual world and the physical
world is a powerful strategy for creating new business opportunities. Why is
this link so vital? Consider how "traditional" shopping and online shopping are
currently understood. Shoppers in physical stores can't bring the contents of
their living room, refrigerator, or clothing closet with them—as a result, they
have to remember exactly what they've already purchased in order to avoid
buying duplicates or products that don't match. Online shoppers face a
different problem: they're physically disconnected, and can't see and feel the
actual goods they're buying.
But imagine if you could seamlessly blend the virtual and the
physical worlds. Technologies such as inexpensive smart tags,
continuous Internet connectivity, powerful embedded computers, and a variety of
environmental sensors are emerging to help connect these two worlds, creating a
new infrastructure for the delivery services through everyday products. With
these embedded services, consumers could then have a richer shopping
experience, and longer-term relationships with businesses.
The Online Wardrobe, a prototype developed by technology researchers at
Accenture, showcases a new technology-enabled channel through which consumers
and businesses can interact with each other. The Online Wardrobe uses
sensors, tagging and tracking technologies to keep track
of the clothing you already own, and helps you buy coordinating items, either
online or in physical stores. With the Online Wardrobe, consumers can
selectively reveal the contents of their wardrobe to their favorite merchants.
In return, they receive personalized offerings and timely reminders about
products of interest. And since the wardrobe is in the consumer's home,
businesses can more easily deliver products and services to where their
customers live, rather than having to lure them to their stores or Web sites to
make a sale.
How does this work in practice? At home, the Online Wardrobe recognizes
your new purchases through sensors and tags; and provides you with a list of
matching items, as well as suggestions for other clothing you might want to
purchase online or from a local store. If you want to buy a dress shirt, just
pull out a pair of pants and a jacket with which you would wear the new shirt.
The wardrobe uses the selected pants and jacket as the constraints to
search online stores, returning a list of shirts that
match best. When you're getting ready for the day, your wardrobe can look up
what's on your schedule, and suggest appropriate attire to wear.
At the mall, just swipe your smart card at a clothing retailer's kiosk,
and you'll have instant access to your virtual wardrobe. The retailer can now
assist you more effectively, by considering your entire wardrobe and offering
suggestions for complete, matching outfits. If you like a particular product
but don't want to buy right there, you can always put it on to your
wishlist, which you can revisit later, either from home or
even another store.
By connecting the physical and virtual worlds in this way, the Online
Wardrobe offers many interesting features:
- My Wardrobe: an exact record of what
you have in your physical wardrobe. Browse My Wardrobe to find out when and
where you purchased a product, and how much you paid for it. Or, view products
from the current marketplace that are similar to what you already have. When
you take out a product from the wardrobe, or put in a new one, My Wardrobe is
updated instantly to reflect the current state of your physical wardrobe. You
can take your wardrobe with you wherever you go shopping.
- My Wishlist: the products you do not
own, but would like to! The Online Wardrobe periodically suggests products that
may be of interest to you based on what you have and what is on sale in the
marketplace. You can update or browse your wishlist from your bedroom through
the wardrobe or kiosks in a store.
- My Store: a personalized list of
merchandise from various online stores that the Online Wardrobe selects for
you, based on what you already own, your preference in style and color, season
and price. My Store is constantly updated with the current market offerings.
- The Market: a list of online stores that
offer products typically found in your wardrobe. At times you may want to shop
in the open market, as opposed to just in My Store. In its idle mode, Online
Wardrobe also randomly displays clothing products from The Market.
At the core of the Online Wardrobe is the tagging and tracking
technology, which we believe greatly enriches consumer experience and expands
business opportunities by transforming traditional products into service
channels. One industry consortium has proposed a next-generation bar code,
known as Electronic Product Code or
EPC, that can uniquely identify every product that will
ever be made, sold, or bought. The code will be embedded in tiny, inexpensive
smart tags, integrated into products themselves or affixed in packages; such
tags would communicate with remote readers using radio frequencies. With the
advent of EPC and smart tags, it is now possible to track in real-time where a
product is, where it is bought, who the current owner is, and how it has been
used. The ubiquitous use of such tags will also allow dynamic linking between
physical products and the vast amount of online information about them.
Together with the widespread use of the Internet and embedded computers,
the tagging and tracking technology helps turn products into an interactive
channel for value-added services, allowing businesses to
form a continuing relationship with the customer, rather than having a sale be
the last point of contact. Physical products can become the access route to
customers, allowing access to on-the-spot decision making data, the opportunity
to offer dynamically tailored incentives, and the ability to compete on the
basis of services offered, not just price and design.
Accenture researchers are exploring how emerging technologies can create
new opportunities for our clients. The Online Wardrobe is just another example
of how the future presents new business opportunities in the real and virtual
worlds.
The Online Wardrobe is another example of
Silent Commerce—the next big
wave of technological change that is revolutionizing business!
For more information, please
contact us.
Publications Magic Wardrobe: Situated Shopping from Your Own
Bedroom
Dadong Wan.
Second International Symposium
on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC 2000), 25-27 September 2000,
Bristol, UK
[Abstract]
[Paper
(PDF, 8.6MB)]
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