Boxpark eyes ‘multi-channel’ future
Pop-up retail site Boxpark is to trial a new mobile and social marketing technology paving the way for it to offer the service to its host of outlet partners such as Nike and The Guardian.
The retail site developer yesterday (10 July) chose to partner with The Upside after the start-up firm pitched its Tapestry app at a government backed event hosted by the Technology Strategy Board, which ploughs up to £25,000 of public money into “innovative” young businesses.
The app lets users look up, or share their favourite clothing items online by scanning them in-store, as part of a scheme backed by Users of the app can scan a barcode of items they are interested in, or use its NFC function to look up more product information, then share this with friends on social networks, and ultimately purchase goods directly on their phones – either in-store or at a later date.
Boxpark, whose debut site on Shoreditch High Street, London, houses outlets from Nike, Puma, Vans and a host of independents, chose to partner with the firm as a means of offering a “low-cost” way for its retail brands to establish a multi-channel marketing relationship with visitors to its site. Tapestry also lets brands push promotions to users of the app, plus consumers can add items to their “wishlists”.
Roger Wade, CEO Boxpark, told Marketing Week: “I believe the future of retail is multichannel and those that don’t have digital in mind have fundamental problems and basically what we’d like to do is offer a digital version of Boxpark.
“This service will offer some of our independents a low-cost way to develop a multi-channel relationship with consumers. Some of the larger brands will have their own [multi-channel marketing] systems but it’s something that will be available to them.”
Niku Banaie, a founding member of The Upside and ex-chief innovation officer at Aegis agency Isobar, says the idea of the Tapestry app is to capitalise on the already well-established behaviour of “showrooming”, where people look at times in-store only to buy them online at a later date.