Bloomingdale’s is celebrating its 150th anniversary with a new virtual store – to create a more robust relationship with its personnel, suppliers and customers.
The department store’s chief marketing officer Frank Berman indicated the company –
Experimented with virtual fashion shows and interactive windows over the past 10 years, but the 150th anniversary gave us the opportunity to think bigger and put our customers front-and-center.
Bloomingdale’s virtual store will initially feature collections from brands like Polo Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, David Yurman, MCM, Byredo and Baccarat. The possibilities the department store can offer in the future is “endless” and “not limited to physical space“.
Further, with the company creating a presence in the metaverse now is about leaning in on multi-generational customers and providing new experiences based on how differently each generation prefers to shop.
In working with the store designer, Emperia, we were able to see the potential of creating an immersive, virtual shopping experience which was a natural progression of our business, including 360-degree views of exclusive luxury products, an interactive 40 Carrots frozen yogurt experience, Big Brown Drones and lots of fun surprises.
Virtual showrooms in the metaverse is the next phase of where the retail industry is going, and it provides an opportunity for customers to have an engaging, immersive experience that connects them to the brand and our store while also enabling us to see what users are most interested in through unique data insights. With this and the associated need to increase our digital presence, moving into the metaverse is really just an extension of what Bloomingdale’s has been doing for 150 years.
Sept 12, 2022 CAIL XR / Innovation commentary www.cail.com/BI info@cail.com