"Store Of The Future": Farfetch revolutionizing luxury retail.

Farfetch is well-known for its ability to make internet shopping easier and more accessible, but the company’s aspirations go far beyond supplying high-end brands with digital storefronts. Farfetch wants to reinvent the entire process of buying designer items. To do this, the company opened a small revolutionary boutique located in east London.

Browns boutique in east London

The "Store Of The Future" offers its customers a futuristic and technologically sophisticated shopping experience. The software, developed specifically on the Farfetch platform, will definitely set new standards in the luxury retail industry.

RFID technology is used to determine if a customer tries on a piece of clothing and takes it into the changing room. The smart mirror technology then presents the customer with items from their personal wish list based on that data.  The augmented reality virtual try-on tools allow customers to try on products that may not even be available at the store!

An instant in-store wish list enables customers to catalogue their favourite pieces, and finish their visit with a simple payment and check-out procedure.  Moreover, instead of the traditional payment process, the same payments can be carried out via a link sent to the customer. (VogueBusiness,2021). 

A touch-screen mirror at Farfetch’s Store of the Future

”We want [the technology] to be used in a way that complements the experience, so that it’s faster and smoother and customers feel like they’re being taken care of and are part of the conversation….It’s that melding of technology and customer service, which is what luxury is ultimately about.” - says the CBO of Farfetch, Holli Rogers. 

From the company’s point of view, a great advantage will be the enormous amount of data that is going to be collected in those stores. They will know how much time the consumer took to choose something, which products were of an interest to the customer the most, what exactly was tried on, the sizes that fit and that didn’t, what is the preferred payment method of the customer… and that’s how you get a real and complete overview of your customers. With all this data, the company can become quite efficient by providing an exceptional personalized experience. Farfetch's vice president of product, Richard Walker, explains that personalization is the company’s “secret sauce.” 

Furthermore, The “Store of the future” will give a lot of freedom to salespeople. They won’t have to worry about boring mechanical tasks anymore, and will be able to dedicate more time in enhancing customer experience.

Store of the Future Connected Display

While it is true that 20% of luxury sales will take place online by 2025 and the remaining 80% will take place in physical stores, it is also true that the online experience alone influences at least 40% of luxury purchases (Woodworth, n.d.).

One bias that luxury brands may be running into, is that they could invest piles of money in improving the hybrid “phygital” experience in the in-store, without considering the part that is 100% purely digital (e.g. website, social media, etc.).

While it is very important to enrich the customer experience in the physical store, we must remember that it is forecasted that $91 billion will come exclusively from online in 2025 (Woodworth, n.d). Downplaying these numbers and not considering them would mean turning a deaf ear and actually losing a good chunk of revenue.

Overall, there are two reasons why we believe this novelty would be perfectly accepted and embraced:

• Customers are lazy: this is one of the biggest axioms in marketing. Technology is the answer to overcome laziness and improve the customer journey, both online and offline. That is the reason why all the online retailers produce digital short cuts such as ‘’Items recommended for you’’ through algorithms and cookies. 

• Pop culture has been preparing us for years: mainstream and cult movies from the past years, such as "Clueless", have been normalizing futuristic shopping experiences by reproducing this personalized technological advent in many ways.

  
  

Iconic Clueless Scene (1995)

In conclusion, we definitely agree that this novelty will be greatly accepted, indeed, it would just feel natural for customers to see this happening and probably at some point this won’t be seen as a source of competitive advantage anymore, but more as a mandatory requirement to stay in business.

Sources:

All about Data – Farfetch´s “Store of the Future“ in London: (n.d.). THE CIRCLE. https://www.thecircle.ch/en/node/101

Kansara, V. A. (2018, October 16). Inside Farfetch's Store of the Future. The Business of Fashion. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/technology/inside-farfetchs-store-of-the-future

Chitrakorn, K. (2021, April 3). Inside the new Browns: Farfetch’s store of the future. Vogue Business. https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/inside-the-new-browns-london-flagship-farfetch-store-of-the-future

Woodworth, S. (n.d.). The Future of Online Luxury Retail. New tactics to drive online sales of high-end goods. LUXE DIGITAL. Retrieved from: https://luxe.digital/business/digital-luxury-reports/future-online-luxury-retail/