Tag: Omnichannel Retail

Klépierre: Inspiration Corridor

One of the biggest problems brick-and-mortar retailers face is that many consumers prefer the convenience of shopping online. So Klépierre, a European specialist in shopping center properties, decides to give customers a unique and personal window shopping experience that simultaneously advertises multiple brands available in its shopping center.

How the corridor turns browsing into a saved journey

The mechanism is a walk-in “inspiration corridor” that is described as using an infrared camera and live detection to adapt the interface to the visitor. The walls then show a curated set of products pulled from real-time inventory, and the visitor can tap items to add them to a personal shopping list. At the end, the selection syncs to the Klépierre mobile app, which then helps locate the chosen products in the mall.

Here, live detection means the corridor reads the visitor in the moment and adjusts what appears on the walls accordingly.

In European shopping centers, the winning retail experiences blend discovery and convenience, giving visitors a reason to browse physically while keeping the efficiency people associate with online shopping.

The result is a browse-first experience that keeps discovery and wayfinding in one flow.

Why this beats “more screens”

This lands because it does not ask shoppers to learn a new behavior. It upgrades a familiar one. Window shopping. The corridor simply makes browsing feel personal and actionable, then removes the “I’ll never find it again” friction by saving the picks and turning them into a navigable list. The stronger move is not to add more screens, but to make physical browsing easier to finish. That works because discovery, selection, and store-finding happen in one continuous interaction.

Extractable takeaway: If your category is losing visits to online convenience, do not fight browsing. Instrument it. Let people browse with their body language and taps, then hand them a saved list that makes the rest of the journey feel effortless.

The quiet business intent

The real question is whether one shared experience can turn mall-level discovery into measurable value for multiple tenants at once.

Klépierre is not only showcasing technology. It is selling a multi-brand promise. One interaction can route a shopper to several tenants, lift discovery across stores, and create measurable signals of interest without needing a single retailer to run the whole experience alone.

What mall operators should borrow

  • Curate across brands. A mall operator can create value by packaging discovery in a way individual stores cannot do alone.
  • Connect to live stock. Recommendations feel credible when they map to what is actually available right now.
  • Make saving the default. “Tap to add” is the key bridge from inspiration to purchase intent.
  • Close the loop with wayfinding. The experience should end with “here’s where to get it”, not just “wasn’t that cool”.
  • Design for low friction. The corridor should work in seconds, even for someone who did not plan to engage.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Klépierre’s Inspiration Corridor?

It is an in-mall interactive experience that personalizes product recommendations on surrounding walls and lets visitors tap to save items to a shopping list that syncs to the mall’s app.

How does the personalization work?

It is described as using live detection, for example via an infrared camera, to adapt recommendations and the interface to the visitor in the moment.

What problem does this solve versus standard mall advertising?

It turns passive promotion into active selection. Instead of only seeing brand messages, shoppers leave with a saved list and a practical path to find products.

What is the main metric to watch?

Saved items per session, app sync rates, store visit lift for featured tenants, and conversion from saved lists to purchases where measurement is possible.

What should you be careful about when deploying live detection?

Be explicit about what is being detected and why, keep the experience usable without any personal account setup, and avoid language that implies storing identities or profiling.

Audi City London: Future of Auto Retail

To solve space challenges at its retail outlet in Piccadilly Circus, Audi has used groundbreaking technology to present its growing model line-up.

Visitors can now digitally select their vehicle from several hundred million possible configurations and experience it in realistic 1:1 scale on special powerwalls. Here, “powerwalls” are wall-sized, high-resolution display surfaces built for life-size visualization.

Various details such as drivetrain, bodyshell, LED light technology etc are presented with interactive gestures, touch and physical sample recognition methods. Physical sample recognition means the system detects physical samples as an input. The whole immersive experience helps make the innovations understandable on an intuitive level.

The future of automotive retail is here and Audi is leading the way, with plans to roll out the experience at 20 locations in major international cities by 2015.

Why Audi City matters beyond “wow”

This is not digital for digital’s sake. It is a retail operating model that turns limited floor space into effectively unlimited shelf space, without forcing the customer to imagine the product from a brochure or a small screen.

Extractable takeaway: When physical space is scarce, move your long tail of options into a high-fidelity interface so the store sells decisions, not inventory.

  • Scale without inventory. Hundreds of millions of combinations without storing hundreds of cars.
  • Confidence through realism. A 1:1 representation reduces the gap between selection and purchase.
  • Innovation made tangible. Drivetrain, bodyshell, and lighting become understandable through interaction.

The showroom becomes an interface

Audi City treats the store like an interface layer between customer intent and product complexity. Gesture, touch, and physical sample recognition are not gimmicks. They are interaction patterns designed to help people explore, compare, and decide.

That is the critical shift. Instead of staff explaining everything verbally, the environment itself becomes the explainer. The real question is whether your showroom is optimized to help customers decide, or just to show what you have in stock. Because the interface externalizes complexity into something people can manipulate, it shortens the explanation loop and increases decision confidence.

In global automotive retail, immersive configuration experiences matter most when they reduce decision friction without expanding showroom footprint.

What this signals about the future of automotive retail

If Audi rolls out this concept across major cities, the implication is clear. Physical retail will not disappear. It will evolve into fewer, smaller, higher-impact locations that are designed for configuration, education, and decision-making, while fulfilment happens elsewhere.

  1. Fewer cars on the floor. More options in the system.
  2. More guided discovery. Less brochure-driven selling.
  3. More consistent global experience. Less dependence on local store size.

What to take from this if you run retail or CX

  1. Use digital to remove physical constraints. The business problem here is space, not “innovation theatre”.
  2. Design interaction for comprehension. Gestures, touch, and samples work when they help people understand complexity quickly.
  3. Make exploration feel premium. 1:1 scale and high fidelity visuals create confidence and desire.
  4. Separate “experience” from “inventory”. Let stores sell decisions, not stock.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Audi City London?

It is an Audi retail concept in Piccadilly Circus that uses large digital powerwalls to let visitors configure vehicles from hundreds of millions of combinations and view them in realistic 1:1 scale.

Why does 1:1 scale matter in a configurator?

It reduces uncertainty. People can judge proportions, design choices, and visual details more confidently than on a small screen.

How does the experience help explain innovation?

By presenting components like drivetrain, bodyshell, and LED lighting through interactive exploration using gestures, touch, and physical sample recognition.

What business problem does Audi City solve?

It addresses limited showroom space while still presenting a broad and growing model line-up and configuration depth.

What is the transferable lesson for other retailers?

Use immersive digital interfaces to expand choice and understanding without expanding physical footprint, and design interactions that make complex decisions feel intuitive.

Görtz: Virtual Shoe Fitting

In September last year I had written about a Nike Sneaker Customization concept from Miami Ad School. Since then, ad agency kempertrautmann, along with German shoe retailer Görtz, creates the same virtual shoe store at Hamburg Central Station and transforms a digital billboard into a point of sale for shoes.

A station billboard that behaves like a shop window

Using Microsoft Kinect gesture controls, the shopper’s feet are scanned and reproduced on the screen. A selection of shoes is then presented to try on and compare virtually. A social component lets shoppers share a snapshot of themselves with the shoes on Facebook. Those who decide to buy receive a QR code that leads to a mobile checkout, with next-day delivery.

Virtual shoe fitting is an interactive retail experience that overlays a chosen shoe style onto a live on-screen view of your feet, so you can judge look and proportion before purchasing.

In European retail environments where commuters split time between offline browsing and mobile checkout, the strongest executions connect fast “try” moments to a low-friction purchase path.

Why it lands: it compresses the path from curiosity to checkout

The idea removes the biggest barrier in out-of-home retail, which is the gap between “that looks interesting” and “I can actually get it”. The Kinect scan creates a personal moment, the virtual try-on creates confidence, and the QR code turns intent into an immediate transaction rather than a promise to remember later. That matters because each step reduces the drop-off that usually happens between public interest and private purchase.

Extractable takeaway: If you want digital out-of-home to sell, not just impress, design the experience so the last step is not “find us later”. Make the last step “buy now”, with the minimum possible handoff friction.

What the campaign is really proving

The real question is whether a public screen can do enough selling work in the moment to replace the need for a later retail visit.

It is less about tech novelty and more about role change. The billboard stops being a broadcast surface and starts behaving like a staffed shop assistant. It recognizes you, helps you evaluate options, and hands you a clear next step to purchase.

This works best when the technology serves the buying decision, not when it becomes the point of the experience.

What this retail screen gets right

  • Personalize instantly: a scan, a fit, a quick moment that feels made for the passer-by.
  • Keep choices bounded: a curated range beats a full catalog when people are in a hurry.
  • Build a shareable artifact: snapshots extend the experience beyond the station.
  • Make the handoff obvious: QR-to-checkout should feel like the natural next click, not a separate journey.
  • Promise something operationally real: next-day delivery turns “stunt” into “service”.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the core idea?

A digital billboard in a train station becomes a virtual shoe store. Shoppers try on shoes using gesture control, then complete purchase on mobile via a QR code.

Why use Kinect in a public space?

Because it enables hands-free interaction and creates a personal “fit” moment without requiring an app download or typing in a rushed environment.

What makes this different from a normal QR poster?

The poster does not only link out. It provides evaluation first. The virtual try-on is the persuasion layer, and the QR code is the conversion layer.

What is the biggest execution risk?

Latency and calibration. If the scan feels inaccurate or the overlay looks wrong, the experience loses trust and the checkout step will not happen.

What should you measure?

Interaction starts, completed try-ons, QR scans, checkout completion rate, and next-day delivery satisfaction. Those metrics show whether the billboard is acting as a true point of sale.