BT has opened a new concept store in the UK to showcase the possibilities of digital shopping to retail customers.
The Alexander Black digital store experience demonstrates how retailers can transform their physical stores to meet the needs of digital consumers.
For example, digital consumers like the personalised service and information they get online and now expect a similarly rich experience when shopping in physical stores. Retailers can respond to this by recognising customers and offering tailored content and relevant special offers.
With departments ranging from fashion to homeware and grocery, the concept store features more than 40 practical solutions that retailers can introduce to deliver a more immersive and engaging store environment. These new technologies have the potential to transform the customer and employee experience and improve operational efficiency, said BT.
“People still really like shopping in physical stores but they want it to be much more like it is online: easy, personalised and entertaining,” explained Hubertus von Roenne, vice president of global industry practices at BT’s global services division.
“Alexander Black looks and feels like a real store and even includes a café to complete the shopping experience. It allows our retailer customers to get their hands on digital touch points such as a shop window display to show how they could interact with shoppers out of hours, a memory mirror with a 360-degree view for trying on new outfits, intelligent merchandise labels and a mobile app for the café. It integrates these solutions to blur the lines between shopping online and in-store, creating the seamless brand experience that digital consumers expect.”
The new concept store is part of BT’s Customer Innovation Showcase located at its global research and development hub, Adastral Park, near Ipswich, Suffolk.
