An article in The New York Times titled “Unboxed, A Data Explosion Remakes Retail” by Steve Lohr caught my eye with a fantastic example of a retailer using a cleaver online idea to drive sales instore.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/03unboxed.html?em
The retailer is US company called Wet Seal, they have 500+ stores and sell fast fashion mostly to female teens.
They have created a web feature called “My Boutique” where users can create outfits from their stock keep them in their own online closet and also post them online. Other users can then search through the posted outfits, review them, post comments and view top rated outfits. They have so far had over 300,000 posted outfits.
They have also broadened the offer to an iPhone application called iRunway that can be used instore to search user-generated outfits from specific garments instore.
For my mind this one of the best examples of a retailer linking online and offline retail in a strategy that not only drives sales through both channels, but improves the shopper experience and provides a gold mine of customer intelligence through user-generated content.
