House of Fraser’s windows were shoppable on Black Friday
British department store House of Fraser saw a 20 percent higher average value for application orders from shoppers who scanned the retailer’s shoppable windows on Black Friday compared to the average app order that day.
The windows could be scanned with the Scan to Shop feature in the House of Fraser iOS app. The interactive windows helped contributed a 116 percent increase in app installs on Black Friday compared to an average day the same week.
“The image in the shop windows included a note to passersby, telling them to open the House of Fraser app to scan,” said Anna Abrell, marketing manager at Poq.
“Shoppers can open the app and select the ‘Scan to Explore’ feature, which will activate the smartphone camera to scan images,” she said. This will then evoke different content, from which users can hit ‘Shop’ and buy the items straight from the app.
“An important factor of the success of the shoppable windows is that the engagement didn’t end with shoppers scanning the windows. Because the ’Scan to Explore’ feature is part of House of Fraser’s transactional shopping app, it makes it extremely easy for users to shop seamlessly from the window scans. This kind of experience cannot be provided without a shopping app that has integrated Augmented Reality functionality.”
House of Fraser operates 60 locations across Britain and Ireland. Poq powers the augmented reality capabilities in the retailer’s app while the shoppable windows leveraged augmented reality technology by Layar.
Merging offline, online experiences
In general, British retailers saw a decrease in same-store sales on Black Friday but saw an increase in online sales. Shoppable windows are one way retailers can merge offline and online experiences.
The House of Fraser program suggests that creating mobile-enabled experiences for window shoppers can create new ways to generate revenue and increase traffic.
Poq reports that the highest number of shoppers scanned the store windows at 8 a.m., before stores opened their doors.
Sales generated through the feature peaked at 8 p.m.
The strategy proved to drive engagement as well, with passersby who scanned the shop windows spending over twice as long browsing the app.
Making shopping fun
While the Black Friday scannable store windows campaign has ended, House of Fraser also offers interactive shopping catalogs that also enable shoppers to use the Scan to Explore feature within the iOS app to bring content to life and shop from it.
“Shoppable windows provide an exciting new way for shoppers to engage with brands and retailers,” Ms. Abrell said. “On the one hand, they offer a fun way for existing customer to engage with the brand – even outside of the physical store opening times.
“On the other hand, they also act as a new incentive for passersby to interact with the brand,” she said. “Consequently, it is a powerful tool for engaging existing customers and drawing in new customers.”
Final Take
Chantal Tode is senior editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York
