Magento Meets Reality – Magento Omni Shopping in the Real World

A hot new trend in the E-marketplace is the establishment of a physical presence in the real world, also called Omni Shopping. E-tailers from Etsy to Tesco have been hopping on the bandwagon trying to get their products out to the rest of the population that doesn’t shop exclusively at their computer. How does your online store meet this Magento omni shopping reality?

One of the most obvious ways to reach this demographic is to open storefronts. Advances in technology have rendered inventory space at the physical locations obsolete which helps keep the rents on space low and the consumer turnaround high.

A more innovative idea involves the use of interactive posters or as they are known in the e-business world, “shopping walls”. These posters are plastered to walls in high traffic pedestrian areas and allow consumers to shop using augmented reality and their cellphones. By launching the appropriate app and pointing their phones at the products they are interested in, shoppers can purchase everything they want just by stopping at one of these “walls”.

Kinetic is also getting in on the action. The X-box device uses innovative software which can recognize people in a physical space and translate their actions on to a digital world. Keytree has used this technology to create a virtual store in people’s living rooms. An almost Star-Treckian vibe is induced in this groundbreaking take on online shopping. Shoppers can physically grab virtual items and place them in their cart as they “walk” around this virtual space.

Hara Partners is keeping a close watch on these consumer experiences and will be implementing the most successful technologies in the near future. Keep up with our blog and see where we take things for our customers, it’s going to be quite a trip!