Month: October 2010

Personalized shopping experiences. Everyones heard of it and it seems to be a growing trend but some companies are taking this to another level.

I just read an article on the RFID journal taking about how an organic clothing store, Clothing for a better Earth, located in New York, is using the help of Ipod’s along with RFID, in their store (the picture below). When customers enter the store they are given an Ipod touch that has an RFID tag embedded into its case. The customers are explained how the technology works and also told to input their age and gender into the ipod. This is the basic level of information they need to input into the ipod, which provides them with age and gender-specific content.

If the customers feels like, the are able to input more detailed preferences, which tailors the information provided to them. The customers movements, along with the items that they viewed in the store, are all stored in the store database which can be accessed from home.

I personally really love the use of technology in clothing stores. It provides a completely different shopping experience and enhances the “wow” factor of the store. I am sure that many other brands have or will start implementing ideas like this. It definitely gives them a competitive edge, and also provides a value-added service to customers by forming personal relationships with each of them. This is just the beginning and it will be something that becomes much more common in the future.

Everyone’s heard of Bodyshop for their ethics in the production of their cosmetic products. Their strict policies against animal testing and their environmentally friendly production techniques make them stand out in what would otherwise be a relatively similar market. Lush is a similar company, offering a similar competitive advantage. They serve similar clients and also have a strong social reponsibility.

The aspect that differentiates the two companies is their involvement in social media. Both firms use different approaches to reaching out to their customers, which (according to the numbers) seem to be working for one company and not the other. Body Shops strategy is using facebook to communicate their corporate ideas to the users and hence their page is quite boring and dry. On the other hand, Lush uses social media in a much more fun and entertaining way. Their tone is much more conversational and they are actually committed to improving their social media engagement.

The response to Body Shops facebook page has been mediocre compare to Lush- with the latter having much more fan posts and likes. I read somewhere that you become a “friend of lush” but a “customer of bodyshop”. I think this hits the nail on the head.

I’m sure everyone has heard of TOMS shoes, but did you know that the name is actually derived from the word “tomorrow” and is not named after the creator of the shoes??

Their entire business structure is based on “buy one” and “give one”, which I have not seen any other business do. For every pair of TOMS that you purchase, they donate a pair. This has so far been extremely successful, with TOMS having reached celebrities like Brad Pitt and Bono.

Watch one of their “shoe drops” in the video below.

TOMS adopts simple, but extremely effective and focused cause-related marketing. It is built into everything that they do and does not seem like a marketing stunt, that many companies are recently doing. I agree completely with all the reasons that are talked about in Ryan’s blog, but I also would like to include another. I feel that TOMS “word of mouth” advertising, has benefited them greatly and their name has caught on like wildfire. They are not advertised on television and print media, like most other shoes, and their stories are passed on from one customer to the next.

I love when business and social cause are combined in a truthful and effective way. TOMS does this. The shoes have been flying off the counters and I think their story is just going to get bigger and bigger!