Macy's unveils new omnichannel strategies to lure shoppers

17 Sep '14

5 min read

The retailer has begun deploying new technology concepts, one of which is ‘Image Search’, an all-new app that allows customers to search the merchandise assortment on macys.com by taking and submitting a photograph of any outfit, accessory or merchandise item they see in daily life.

The visual search will take the customer to similar items on macys.com, where they can be purchased. Macy’s Image Search is currently available for iPhone from the Apple App Store, and the functionality will be incorporated into the primary Macy’s app.

Both, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s have introduced new mobile wallets and enables shoppers to easily store and access offers and coupons virtually, by creating a seamless, omnichannel checkout experience for customers enrolled in loyalty rewards programs.

Storing this information in a single destination eliminates the need for physical versions of special discount offers or other shopping incentives.

The retailer informed that Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s are seeing tangible results from their adoption of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology that began rolling out in 2011.

Macy’s was among the first retailers to implement RFID on a broad national scale to improve the accuracy of item-level inventory counting, with an emphasis on basic size-intensive replenishment categories so the company can ensure that all appropriate styles and sizes are properly in place on the selling floor and available for sale.

In recent omnichannel pilots in fashion categories – social dresses, men’s sports coats and men’s slacks – Macy’s documented RFID’s ability to significantly improve sales, gross margins and markdowns by better leveraging inventory counts that are real-time and accurate. Additional rollout of RFID tagging in fashion categories is planned for 2015.

After a test run last year during the holiday season at Macy’s flagships in New York and San Francisco, Macy’s and shopkick, one of the most widely used real-world shopping apps, will expand the use of shopkick’s shopBeacon technology to all Macy’s stores nationwide.

In what will be the largest implementation of iBeacon technology at retail stores to date with more than 4,000 devices, shopBeacons will be placed within various departments at Macy’s locations, allowing for users of the shopkick app to get more personalized department-level deals, discounts, recommendations and rewards.

Bloomingdale's has introduced smart fitting rooms in five store locations. These fitting rooms have wall-mounted tablets where selling associates and customers are able to scan merchandise items to view other colors and sizes available and, in many cases, see additional product information, product ratings/reviews and recommendations on complementary items to “complete the look.”

Most importantly, customers are able to tap a button to call for assistance from a sales associate without even leaving the room. This can be a call for general assistance or a specific request for another color or size in items they like. The new Stanford Bloomingdale's store in Palo Alto, CA, will be the first to have the new technology. (AR)

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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