CF.Digital CEO Iryna Mushtina on the main meaning of digital and how the combination of physical and virtual will help solve business problems

You've probably heard of such applications (you just may not have thought about what it is, though) as interactive showcases and fitting rooms, where you can select any product you like with a slight movement of your hand and check how it looks on you in the “mirror.”

You know about IKEA's popular case study on how you can simulate the appearance of a new sofa in your living room by moving it on your tablet, and you've probably seen a number of augmented reality projects where strange people waving their arms in the middle of the store's sales floor were displayed on a huge screen surrounded by flamingos.

It's all digital. I call this kind of digital “fan-style digital”.

And today I want to talk about its slightly different side, and then we will look at two cases in which digital is used to increase business efficiency and solve specific business problems.

Let's imagine a new brand: original fashionable clothes with original prints.

The goal of the brand owners is to ensure mass entry into the international market, focusing on young active solvent customers.

The communication channel is duty free in dozens of European airports.

The goal is to showcase the assortment and at the same time demonstrate the limited nature of the collections.

The problem is that the cost of placing a stand with goods in duty free is huge, so it is possible to place only a limited number of goods.

This is where digital comes in. We examined the quality of the goods and were impressed by the original prints. Do you want more? The interactive display will show you all the possible options on your way. Now you can pick up different items or put together a whole collection in different sizes and prints in Vienna, London, and Berlin - what is not available in one city can be easily found in another. Additionally, the fan element (where without it) is actually a quest to “find your own designer clothes and make a souvenir out of it.”

In this case, in addition to the original approach of “logistics” of goods, the main task of the digital store was to compensate for the small physical location of the goods by extending the exposition in an interactive way and creating additional value by extending it to different cities in Europe.

Let's imagine another situation: a bakery that bakes bread according to the right recipes - real unleavened bread.

Accordingly, it is baked in limited quantities and there is a chance that customers coming to the store for a particular favorite croissant may not find it in stock.

How to solve this problem? Use digital! Only on the contrary: not to go into the physical world with digital technologies, but to enter the digital world with real buns =)

So, a webcam that broadcasts the situation on the counter to the website in online mode: fresh pastries go straight to the counter, and from there to customers' smartphones.

And another example from the field of digital, which, in my opinion, is now very much awaited and needed in the retail market - not only in Ukraine but also in Europe - is the creation of a “size passport” - a 3D model of a person with all the nuances of his or her figure, which will make it easy to make purchases and always fit in size, both in different stores and different brands. It's no secret that each manufacturer has its own sizing principles, and it's the failure to fit that is the main barrier in e-commerce, especially when it comes to new brands.

Moreover, an important point in this technology is the development of an independent application that integrates with any online clothing store so that a potential buyer can take such measurements on their own and at home, because the measurements of a dressed person in a store will contain a large error.

Success and the next step in the development of clothing retail will be in collaboration. As soon as individual stores recognize and are ready to integrate a single third-party “size passport” format, without pulling the blanket over themselves and forcing the customer to install new applications and measure themselves using new methods over and over again, this is the moment when the entire online clothing retail industry will benefit.

In general, I would divide all areas of application of digital technologies in the retail sector into two main areas:

- solving the seller's tasks to increase efficiency and optimize business processes: RFID technologies in warehouse management, analysis of offline customers and their behavior in stores to build forecasts;

- solving customer problems: convenience, acceleration and transformation of standard shopping into an exciting adventure - from interactive mirrors in fitting rooms with recommendations of related products to a store in full virtual reality, where you can choose and buy a handbag with a nod of the head.

I think that in a couple of years, the active use of digital technologies will be supplemented by augmented reality glasses, which will replace the usual smartphones and smart personal assistants who will order products in the store and help you choose a dress in an interactive mirror.

This is the main meaning of digital - to combine what seems to be incompatible and get a new solution, innovative and original.

The material was published on mmr.ua