Mass Personalisation

Are you curious to see behind the smoke and mirrors of Fragrance Lab and discover its inspiration? At The Future Laboratory we keep our nose firmly to the ground, identifying signs of consumer change in order to anticipate the future and steer the conversation. LS:N Global is our trends and consumer insight network that helps our clients to keep one step ahead. The Fragrance Lab, the result of a collaboration between Selfridges, Campaign Design, Givaudan and The Future Laboratory, reflects our research into the future of retail, which discovered that brands need to be experience-providers and thought-leaders, and to offer personalisation to captivate consumers who are inundated with choice.

Today we will look behind the curtain – and the paywall – to reveal some of the stories on retail innovators catering to the desires of consumers who want to display their individualism and personality through the products they purchase. It is this notion of mass personalisation and a Total Retail approach that inspired the thinking behind Fragrance Lab. This Total Retail approach is what inspired the thinking behind Fragrance Lab. This preview will only be available for a short time, until midnight on Monday. It is the second of three previews of what LS:N Global has to offer that will run over the next two weeks.

Read what the press has been saying about Fragrance Lab here.

Department stores are adding scanners to fitting rooms, brands are using 3D scanning to identify which groups are underserved by current sizing, and new digital bespoke retailers are positioning scanners at the centre of their business models.

Digital bespoke

In December 2013, digital bespoke menswear company Acustom Apparel opened its first walk-in store in New York’s SoHo district. The company uses scanners to map men’s bodies with 200,000 distinct data points, working with customers to design ideal suits, blazers, jeans and shirts. The designs are then sent to be hand-tailored in Guangzhou.

Digital scanning also helps retail-averse men outsource their shopping, says Shaw. ‘Their view is ‘if I get scanned, then my wife or my partner can buy clothing and I never have to go into the store again’,’ she says. ‘That’s the dominant male message we hear.’

Matching bodies with brands

Selfridges has used Bodymetrics 3D scanners in its Denim Studio, and the devices have popped up at Westfield Stratford City. Stateside, Bloomingdale’s has installed 3D scanners by Me-Ality at locations in New York, Maryland and California.

Me-Ality scanners use millimeter wave technology – similar to the systems in use in airport security – to obtain detailed body measurements beyond what is available with traditional tailoring. A customer can match his or her body type to a database of corresponding brands and styles available at a given store. Me-Ality’s algorithms take account of how details such as fabric content and colour quality affect sizing, for example distinguishing the difference in fit between dark and light denim.

Body scans often empower women to shop out of their comfort zones, says Me-Ality CEO Tanya Shaw. ‘Maybe their body has changed and they are confused by what size to wear, or they have been sticking to the same brand because they know it fits,’ Shaw tells LS:N Global. ‘Some 57% of customers say they have bought a brand they never would have considered trying before because they would have felt self-conscious.’

Scanning futures

Consumers are already using 3D scanning in ways not directly related to clothing, but retailers have yet to embrace the available opportunities. 3D scans can help users monitor their fitness or weight loss, match them with equipment such as mountain bikes or backpacks, and create realistic avatars for use in virtual gaming. Future retail innovators could have customers’ body types on file and show them images of what they would look like in a given item of clothing, whether online or in-store.

Shaw says the next generation of 3D scanners will move from room-sized chambers to hand-held devices, which could even be rented and operated at home to perform body scans of whole families. And with lower costs, scanners will proliferate throughout stores, with multiple devices available in menswear, womenswear, lingerie and more. Emerging markets such as South Korea, India and Dubai all have expressed a strong interest in 3D scanning, she says.

Rather than be dictated to about what sort of perfume or cologne they should be wearing, consumers are craving bespoke, personalised scents that truly match their tastes and their personality. Smart brands are asking their customers to share their personal information and in return are creating perfumes perfectly tailored to their needs.

The scent of something new

Los Angeles-based start-up Commodity is launching its own online scent profiling system. Users visit the website and answer a series of questions to create their own unique fragrance profile. They then receive a selection of perfume samples through the post and are given one week to wear each before choosing the scent that suits them best.

‘It is a new wave of online commerce,’ Owen Gee, co-founder of Commodity, tells LS:N Global. ‘The service disrupts the idea of a physical store and brings the experience online and then to the home.’

Sensory diagnosis

Parisian retailer Nose also matches consumers with scents based on their personal information. Users list their favourite perfume styles and aromas, as well as past and current perfumes. Nose gives them an assessment on the perfect fragrance for them, including head, heart and base notes. The user is then invited to visit the Nose store where they can sample five specially created scents based on the online diagnosis.

The smell of science

Organic beauty retailer Heliocosm invites customers into its Paris store-cum-laboratory where they can make their own cosmetics. The brand also has its own online scent concierge service where experts will make sample fragrances to try. Shoppers simply fill out a survey online and a host of options are ready when they come in.

Beaconing

Beacons use low-energy wireless Bluetooth signals to detect the position of smartphones. This system is much more accurate than GPS, which works best outside and only gives an approximate location. ‘GPS is pretty useless,’ Dave Coplin, chief envisioning officer at Microsoft UK, tells LS:N Global. With a Beacon, it is possible for a retailer to know not just which street you’re on, but precisely where you are in a store.

With this information, retailers can send promotions or information to customers relevant to the aisle they are standing in. ‘This is about helping individuals to orientate themselves in the store, but also about providing contextual information,’ says Coplin. ‘It’s about giving you the best of both worlds. Give me information from the digital world that can help make my real-world experience better.’

Cheap as chips

Beacons are not only accurate, but cheap too. The Series 10 Gimbal Beacons, released in December by Qualcomm, the world’s biggest manufacturer of chips for mobile phones, cost as little as $5 (€3.70, £3) each. A small device slightly larger than a coin, the Gimbal receives and transmits information throughout the store and, because it is low-energy, does so without draining precious battery power.
Installing one of these devices can be as quick and easy as downloading an app; easier, in fact, because Apple’s iBeacon, the most prominent of the existing Beacon products, is already installed on the iOS 7 operating system. Apple also offers a separate Beacon like the Gimbal, but for owners of recent iPad and iPhone models this device is unnecessary. As Matthew Panzarino says on TechCrunch.com: ‘Every iOS device since the iPhone 4s and iPad third generation is already capable of being either an iBeacon receiver or transmitter, as long as it is properly configured.’

Pay mate

Retailers have already started experimenting with Beacons. Apple introduced the device in a limited capacity into its US stores in December, and department store chain Macy’s has added the technology in its flagship stores in New York and San Francisco. As yet, though, these are still experiments. For all its potential, nobody is sure how the technology will work in practice.
PayPal unveiled its Beacon payment solution at Le Web 2013, Europe’s biggest technology conference, where PayPal global director John Lunn spoke to LS:N Global. ‘Consumers are going to love this,’ said Lunn, ‘because it is going to allow them to get the same personalisation and customisation, essentially, that their grandmother got when she went shopping.’

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