The French-based clothing retailer Comptoir des Cotonniers might not have a Mobile App.
But, it is perhaps revolutionizing the world of fashion today bringing it into the era of what we’re all doing these days: the digital age and virtual shopping. It’s called ‘Fast Shopping’ and it can all happen in just a blink of an eye. Comptoir des Cotonniers is hailing it as the world’s first ever virtual boutique that acts like this.
How?
Comptoir des Cotonniers has just launched its 20-second mobile shopping idea that looks set to take the fashion world by storm and radically change the way people actually shop. This is the meeting point of the virtual digital world and reality!
So, how does it work? Easy. The company launched its first virtual boutique at the end of May at the Publicis Drugstore on the Champs-Elysées. By using the PowaTag application that they have launched with Bluetooth, QR codes and JavaScript as well as audio sensors and payment authentication, it’s easier than going to a real bricks-and-mortar shop.
This is no longer endless hours of searching through pages on the internet either in front of your PC. They bring the clothes to you. You point your phone at the flashcode and you get to choose instantly the size you want and where you want it delivered.
Just a few taps of your finger away from getting the clothes delivered straight to your office or to your home, in less than 48 hours as well (according to the company). It couldn’t be easier for retailers. The company has a clientele that knows what it wants. The only solution is to bring the clothes to them, and do away with having to get them into the shops. Advertising becomes the means of selling and not just getting you to know the brand. People can shop while waiting for transport, going to work, jumping into a taxi, sitting at a restaurant table. You don’t have to go to the shops; the shops come to you.
Buying on your phone in just a few swipes of your finger is the future that Comptoir des Cotonniers is offering the retail world today.
Mobile World Revolution
You might say that it should have been done long ago. According to the Intelligence Report: Mobile and Tablet 2014 by L2 (Business Intelligence for Digital) it’s going to be mobile investments and application development that will be the driving force in in-store and e-commerce sales and their growth in coming years.
Already in the US, people are spending more time on their mobiles than on their desktop devices. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The mobile you have is with you permanently; whenever we need it we use it, wherever we are. It’s been like that since May 2013 in the USA. Other countries are exactly the same and the trend is echoed around the Western world.
Smartphone users spend an average of 15 hours every week using internet and accessing applications today in the USA.
Whether or not people actually buy through their applications, like at Comptoir des Cotonniers, is hardly important. Companies today need to be in the smartphones that people are accessing for those 15 hours every week. If they go home and sit down at their desktop to complete the purchase, then so what? But, without applications and without a mobile strategy companies will be off the page and they won’t even get the slightest look in. Someone else will pip you to the post, that’s all.
What Comptoir des Cotonniers is also banking on now is that people who wouldn’t have gone to the shops to make a purchase before might now be interested in at least visiting the site or trying out the application. That’s the advantage of being the first on the market to act like this. It can only be beneficial to the retailer.
Comptoir des Cotonniers has boasted the expansion of its company, stating that it managed to open 10,000 virtual stores in one single night across the world. There are not many that can do that!
The beauty of the concept is also that anything can become a virtual shop today for Comptoir des Cotonniers; it could be the virtual shop that is the bus shelter on any street corner. A table at a local bistro could become a boutique with the items on sale on the table mats.
You name it; the list is as endless as the things that make up our world.
Comptoir de Cotonniers has a total of 375 stores all over the world, with the majority (226) set up in France. There are 96 stores in other countries in the European Union, 45 stores operating in Japan and across Asia and 8 stores retailing in the United States.
