LOOM - Immersive Retail — Philosophy, Technology, Bibliothecary, Design

DESCRIPTION

Loom needed to increase their retail footprint, enhance product storytelling and generate talkability but as an independent retailer, they couldn’t splash out on TV ads.

We used technology both online and offline to create a new set of digital experiences that engaged customers with emotive, shoppable content, whilst reimagining the traditional retail experience.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

We wanted people on the street to interact with in-store products, without having to come inside. This meant that these products needed to be plugged into the so-called ‘internet of things’. For the windows, each product box was wired up to a Raspberry PI, running a NodeJS server and connected to the internet. Utilising NFC tags for supported smartphones or QR codes as a fallback, users could directly control each product box, activating electronics that had been rigged up through the use of the PI's GPIO as well as the addition of Arduino controlled components. The electronics included a stepper motor, computer fans and LED matrices. Once engaged, the press of a button on the mobile site we developed would bring the electronics in each respective box to life. From the mobile site, users could directly navigate to the e-commerce solution, where they could purchase the product directly.

The till slip was generated on the fly by connecting to Loom's proprietary point-of-sale system, which provided details about the products purchased. Based on this information, the application would dynamically generate a custom till slip for each purchase. The till slip included useful information relevant to that purchase, including a unique QR code that directed the user to their own personalised mobile site, where they could continue their Loom journey.

Our LOOM-O-VISION interactive media wall was driven by distinctly encoded RFID tags, fitted to various products. To read these tags, we rigged up an RFID reader to an Arduino that sent the tag information to an internal network of Raspberry PIs as well as a Windows PC, each connected to a 32' full-HD monitor. Each machine would display appropriate material based on the relevant RFID product tag, including video material of the brand, static information about the product, and dynamically retrieved images from social channels, such as Instagram, through the use of an API.

The Loom e-commerce site was built using the Shopify platform. Loom has a small amount of stock and can't keep items separate for the online store. It was therefore critical that the online store and the physical store's stock matched. For this, we integrated the e-commerce site directly into Loom's point-of-sale system, so that sales on either would reflect accordingly on the other end through the use of a custom alert system. Imports and updates to their stock would also reflect on the online store, streamlining the stock management process for the client.