Your fitting room is an untapped goldmine. With the right tech, you can make big changes; we're talking fast, frictionless transactions, tailored shopping experiences, and upselling opportunities galore. It sounds like Blade Runner-style stuff, but it's really not. Once you know more about the tech that makes it all possible, you'll see just how achievable the 'futuristic fitting room' really is. We're about to pull back the curtain on the fitting room revolution…
The death of fitting rooms as we know them?
Fitting rooms are an integral part of the brick-and-mortar shopping experience. But, where other aspects of the in-store experience have evolved to support today's consumer expectations, the fitting room has mostly been neglected. Criminal when you consider its power in the buying journey.
A 2024 survey by leading European online fashion and lifestyle platform Zalando, in partnership with YouGov, highlighted customer dissatisfaction with the ‘traditional’ changing room experience. According to their data, there’s growing dissatisfaction with the in-store fitting room experience, with 39 percent of shoppers feeling either insecure, frustrated, or disappointed. If that weren’t bad enough, 41 percent of UK shoppers said a negative experience would put them off purchasing altogether!
Nowadays, shoppers want ‘phygital’ experiences in stores — a seamless mix of physical and digital. You'll have to provide something they can't get online. Something so good, it makes an in-person shopping experience as tailored and instantly gratifying as the online one. And this is where we get to the good stuff…
Why RFID is a perfect fit for your changing room
Radio-frequency identification technology isn't new, but when it comes to retail, it's been making waves in recent years. Brands have been finding new and more innovative ways to use the tech to revolutionize supply chain efficiency, inventory transparency, and the customer experience.
Embedding tech like NFC and RFID in your garments, accessories, and labels opens up new possibilities for brick-and-mortar retail. And the fitting room is one of the places you’ll see its benefits (as brands like Zara, Nike, and Savage x Fenty have already discovered!). Allow us to elaborate…
Behind the curtain: smart fitting room tech
Smart mirror, smart mirror on the wall…
Today’s shoppers love a personalized experience. And why wouldn’t they? When done well, online shopping gives them tailored product recommendations, seamless omnichannel shopping journeys, and auto-filled, expedited checkout. Shopping is easy, intuitive, and rewarding. And now, your brick-and-mortar stores can meet that same standard.
Enter the smart mirror — a reflective augmented reality (AR) glass that can facilitate virtual try-ons or even allow the customer to take and download photos of an outfit for future reference. The mirror can read the RFID chip inside the garment or its tag and upsell complementary garments and accessories or help the customer locate different sizes and styles.
If the customer scans their garment looking for a different color or size and you have it in stock, they can use the smart mirror interface to request it. If you don't have the garment, the customer could locate it in a nearby store and reserve/buy for collection or even buy the item from your online shop.
RFID isn’t just the backbone of smart mirror technology — it also gives you up to 99 percent inventory accuracy, so you don’t have to worry about your smart mirrors making you look unreliable by promising the customer items you don’t have. Because broken promises = poor customer experiences!
Be checking yourself out
Yep, that’s right. In the dressing rooms of tomorrow, you’ll be checking yourself out in more ways than one. Self-service checkout is also possible in the fitting rooms (and if you don’t believe us, peep M&S’s latest innovation).
It makes sense when you think about it — imagine queueing for the fitting room, only to queue again for the till. Today's customers want frictionless checkout, and if that means abandoning their cart and buying online to skip a queue, they'll do it. Before you know it, you've lost the sale to your online warehouse.
Embedding RFID inlays discreetly into your garments will allow customers to quickly buy the items they want, minimizing checkout friction and giving them less time for second thoughts. It also offers shoppers a choice — buy now or head to the till for an in-person experience with the cashier. Moreover, embedding makes self-checkout easier because the garment is less likely to be separated from its tag (accidentally or intentionally).
Tracking stock movement
Do you know how many garments go through your fitting room each day? Or which garments have the highest conversion rate after being tried on? Or vice versa, which commonly end up back on the rack? Our Compass RFID inlays can track your products around the shop floor to gauge the flow and movement of your stock.
You can have your fitting rooms adequately staffed at the busiest times of the day and see which items need quicker replenishment, so you always have a full allocation of sizes or styles available for other shoppers. It also allows you to build a more accurate model of which garments sell well per location and which are more prone to fitting room thefts (so you can start hard tagging with strategy!).
Could your fitting rooms do with a change?
Are you ready to transform your fitting rooms? We recommend getting an expert team involved. Our RFID experts have worked with hundreds of brands on projects of all kinds, adapting the rollout and technology to suit each individual budget, timeline, and use case. Each project looks different (and we wouldn’t have it any other way!).
Get in touch with our RFID team today and give them the lowdown on your fitting room plans. They can point you towards the best RFID inlays for the job and could even help develop a solution to fit your exact need (we’ve done it before!). Your new, money-making, upselling, phygital fitting rooms could be an email away!
