The Retail Experience: The Future of Fitting Rooms, Part One

It goes without saying that there are many factors retailers must consider to ensure their customers have a pleasant experience in which they not only spend money in the store, but want to come back again. Everything from the way a customer is greeted to the manner in which they are sent on their way should be carefully tailored to ensure a successful shopping visit. However, while retailers spend intense efforts on revamping and planning their stores, one major component has been overlooked by many for far too long, and it’s time retailers make a change. I’m talking, of course, about the fitting room.

 Many retailers fail to understand the importance of the fitting room, instead opting to give their customers a glorified closet - a small, five-by-five room with roughly two hooks, and a few mirrors at the end of the hall. The incredible potential for the fitting room is overlooked by many, to the detriment of their own profits.

Imagine this scenario: You’re browsing through a rack of shirts and a store associate approaches you and suggests a shirt. Do you buy it? Or say you’re purchasing a dress and as the cashier is ringing up your sale, they point you to accessories and suggest a pair of earrings. Do you walk over and grab the earring? Most shoppers wouldn't, and this behavior is only amplified by the economy: Retail Forward reports that the recession is causing 34% of female shoppers to spend less on impulse purchases, so gently nudging shoppers towards additional purchases has become even more vital.

Think of it this way: During the three main segments of a typical apparel shopping experience, when is a customer most likely to choose what they're going to buy? - when they're browsing the racks, actively trying on clothes in the fitting room, or at the point-of-sale? Given that shoppers in the fitting rooms are examining the way they look and feel in the clothes they are potentially going to purchase, doesn't it seem natural that they are far more likely to be in "purchasing mode" in that environment, and therefore more open to trying on suggested additional items?
Dressing room feeling blah and familiar?
Don't worry, there's "room" for a new "model"...

One of the major challenges retailers face is how to better connect customers to the sales associates in the dressing room. How many times have you found yourself needing assistance when trying on clothes, only to have to hunt down someone to help you? The problem is even worse when shopping for (ahem) "intimates", where you don’t want to chase down an associate in your underwear, so you have to put your clothes back on in order to go search out help. It’s no surprise that, according to Marge Laney of Alert Technology, "97% of customers that we surveyed have left a fitting room and just walked out of the store at one time or another ... They just say, 'Screw it, I don’t need it that bad.' and leave."

On the other end of the spectrum is the associate who is too involved in the shopping process. Many people think of clothes shopping as a social experience, bringing along friends or family to offer opinion. But even if a shopper is alone, it doesn't mean the associate has to become the consumer's new BFF. As my mom so eloquently put it about a recent trip to a local clothes store in which the clerks paid her a little TOO much attention: “The salespeople are freaky -- they’re what Scientologists must be like. ... I go in to try on pants, and before I know it they’ve brought me 14 shirts and 5 pairs of shoes.” This shouldn't ever be the case, because it threatens to overwhelm the consumer and potentially drive them out of the store.

So it’s up to each individual retailer to figure out how to balance providing too much assistance to the customer and not providing enough. You obviously want your customer to end up spending more at your store than they intended, but you also don’t want them leaving feeling as if they were pressured into trying on clothes they didn't want or donating their life savings to a cult. There idea is for retailers to transform their fitting rooms from what is essentially a broom closet with a hook on the wall into an essential part of the shopping experience, and create an experience so exciting people tell their friends about it.

Now that we've given you the bad news about the state of the dressing room, stay tuned for part two where we discuss how to change things: from new innovations in lighting to new technologies that make mirrors seem magic. Stay tuned!