Lord + Taylor Is Offering Free Personal Styling… From Your Phone!
Get ready to jump for joy, because Apple’s iBeacon has finally made its way to department stores — more specifically, Lord + Taylor in the U.S. and Hudson’s Bay in Canada. Basically, this means you can have a personal shopping assistant that’ll help you experience shopping in a unique, connected way, all from your mobile device. And who doesn’t want a piece of that?!
If you don’t know about Apple’s newest Bluetooth technology, iBeacon will change the way iOS users interact with their surroundings. When it comes to shopping, it can do things like understand when you’re in a store and offer you discounts or direct you to where you can pick up the shoes that you Pinned the other day. It’s been implemented in super stylish sunglasses, but now it’s becoming even more accessible with a free app called Swirl. To participate in a unique and personalized in-store experience, just download the app to get notifications, alerts and coupons.
Let’s just say you are in the market for a pair of jeans, so you march yourself over to the denim department. Swirl can help you determine how each brand fits, if any pairs are on sale and give you specific info on the brand itself. That’s pretty freakin’ awesome, if you ask us. Also, the iBeacon technology will be integrated with the store’s customer data, so if you’re a frequent L+T shopper and always gravitate toward a certain designer, you will get instant alerts when that brand goes on sale.
iBeacon is only compatible with five stores right now (Lord + Taylor, Hudson’s Bay, Kenneth Cole, Alex and Ani and Timberland), but Swirl works with a number of retailers — they just won’t all be hyper-personalized experiences. We can just imagine how cool it will be when the whole mall gets involved with iBeacon. There is so much potential! It’s a one-of-a-kind retail experience that everyone’s going to want in on. Because we’re glued to our phones 24/7, we think this idea is seriously genius and can’t wait for it to catch on.
What retailer are you hoping to see join in on the action? What about iBeacon do you think could be most useful? Let us know in the comments below!
(h/t Mashable)