The Galeria Kaufhof in Essen, Germany has found a new, intriguing way to use RFID tags. Typically, the RFID craze was surrounded around tracking items from suppliers to checkout. But, with new efforts from Checkpoint Systems, Impinj and Reva Systems, men buying clothes in RFID supported stores will get automatic suggestions!! Cool huh?! According to Baseline, when men go into the dressing room to try on a suit, a "smart mirorr" tells them what kind of shirt or tie they should buy with it. The notion is that business intelligence systems like smart mirrors and smart shelves can be used to increase sales while providing viable options to customers real-time.
Concept?
These smart mirrors have RFID readers which can determine what apparel has been brought into the change room or is wearing or holding at the table, based on their attached RFID tag. The mirror then displays complementary clothing choices or accessories. Just in conjunction with "smart shelves", the user is presented with only those options (ie sizes, styles and colors) that are available in-store.
How it works?
Thats a great question. Unfortunately, most of the documentation that I found online is written in German, revealing one of my many weaknesses in that Im not bilingual! So I'm left to infer possibilities. Being that the tags are placed on each item in the store, I gather there's some type of item or content based filtering behind the scenes. I would also suggests there may perhaps be some collaborative filtering as well given suggestions can be derived from past customers buying patterns and what items they pair together. I also wonder if perhaps some suggestions are entered into the system before involving any additional filtering. From the company standpoint, I'm sure they have designers and clothes buyers that are familiar with "what goes well together" so perhaps they use that upfront knowledge to offer recommendations and continue to develop those as more data is gathered. I definitely believe the suggestions rests on some type of hybrid recommendation system and am eager to determine if my assumptions are accurate, perhaps I can find a German speaking assistant between now and the end of the semester :-)
So far this technology is only available to males as the belief is they need more help. I would only offer that since women tend to shop more, financial benefits may be seen more readily by implementing this technology for females. Just my thoughts!
RFID tags help you to choose clothes (October 16, 2007)
Retailer Uses RFID to Help the Sartorially Challenged Sex (October 4, 2007)
World's First End-to-End UHF Item-Level RFID Shopping Experience for METRO Group (September 20, 2007)
METRO Group - The Spirit of Commerce
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