Going Inside The Fitting Room

☀️ Good Morning, this is Points of Sale: the newsletter written exclusively for independent retailers. It takes 5 minutes to read and is packed with tangible insights to run your store more effectively. Written by a retail veteran with 30 years under her belt.

In today’s newsletter, we’re going inside the fitting room, highlighting tips for Coterie, and sharing our favorite find of the week.

🪞To Mirror or Not to Mirror?

Good American, the denim brand owned by Khloé Kardashian, recently opened their first brick-and-mortar location in LA. The store’s private fitting rooms are decked out with Crave Retail’s smart technology that automatically recognizes items brought into the fitting room.

Customers can explore product details on a digital screen, request new sizes or colors, scroll complimentary items, and even checkout. Crave claims their technology can 7x conversion.

While connected fitting rooms equip retailers with more first-party data to personalize experiences and can make shoppers feel at ease, removing the sales associate from the experience can potentially overload customers with catalog options and hurt sales.

In the future, I think we’ll see a hybrid approach where screens are also placed outside of fitting rooms, allowing sales associates to navigate options collaboratively with shoppers, while educating them on product differentiators.

Counterpoint: Let’s take a look at Aritzia, a Canadian retailer known for stylish, affordable clothing and it’s unique mirrorless fitting rooms.

Artizia bills the mirrorless approach as a social, inclusive experience that allows customers to get help from sales associates, who are known as "style advisors." While true and fun for some, the real benefit for Aritzia is that shoppers see what other customers are trying on, which drives FOMO and upsells. However, a segment of customers don’t have the confidence to leave the fitting room, and in Aritzia’s case, they have taken to social media to voice their discomfort and unflattering experiences.

Both strategies have merit. In-room mirrors and checkout capabilities provide convenience and privacy. Open fitting rooms can cultivate community and social validation, which are key to sales. At the end of the day, it’s up to you to make customers feel confident and comfortable within your store’s environment.

⭐Quick Tips for Coterie

If you’re attending Coterie this week, you’re here to nurture relationships with existing vendors and to build new ones. Take a look at the full list of exhibitors, which you can search into with filters that are relevant for your store.

After New York Fashion Week, many new trends have emerged. Keep a lookout to find them.

From WWD’s recap of NYFW Spring 2024:

• Trends included softer tailoring, mesh layering, an abundance of whites, uniform dressing, seasonless and weightlessness, mermaid-inspired styles and flats.

• Standout collections included Khaite, Phillip Lim, Altuzarra, Proenza Schouler, and Carolina Herrera, with emerging talent such as Diotima and Zankov also drawing praise. Favorite pieces included leather tops at Phillip Lim and sheer skirts at Brandon Maxwell.

Coterie also offers a unique opportunity to buy from international brands - take advantage of it. For inspiration, The Daily Front Row did an excellent roundup of the 70 Made in Italy brands showing at Coterie.

💡Visual Delight

I came across The Shopkeepers on Instagram this week and have been excited to share for days. The aesthetic of a beautiful storefront will always remain unmatched. For stories and photographs of shops that inspire from London to New York, Paris to Tokyo, check ‘em out.

🔗 A few good reads & listens:

• Visual Merchandising: How To Create Retail Counter Displays That Work (link)

• Ecomm Forecasting Models Explained (link)

• The importance of warm lighting (link)

• Could TikTok kill Amazon? (link)

• Inside the Rise of Emily Weiss's Glossier (link)

Thanks for reading. Talk next week.

xx