智能试衣镜：试衣间里的魔镜

    想象一下，你在诺德斯特龙（Nordstrom）门店的试衣间内试衣服。你正找一双配衣服的鞋子，或是想看看产品评论，或只是召唤店员给你拿一件不同颜色或尺码的衣服，但你不必脱下来穿回自己的衣服后再出去做这一切（如果你没打算离开这家店的话）。

    诺德斯特龙即将在西雅图和圣何塞的两家门店中采用eBay的技术，为顾客提供一种新服务：下周起，公司将在这两家门店中的特定商品区测试全身试衣镜，用户用手指敲击镜面，就会弹出互动屏幕，营造出智能试衣间的效果。

    这个想法是要把技术引入一个之前从未涉及的商店区域——试衣间。许多顾客正是在这里做出最终购买决定的。

    诺德斯特龙公司零售业务负责人，数字业务Nordstrom Direct前主管杰米•诺德斯特龙对《财富》（Fortune）表示：“顾客购买衣服的方式已经发生了变化。我们如何获取顾客坐在家中沙发上浏览衣服时看到的所有信息，并为试衣间增添这样的体验，从而结合两个环境下的优点？”

    对那些想在电子商务时代把实体店的优势发挥到极致的零售商而言，这样的结合是重中之重。诺德斯特龙是实体零售商中公认的技术领袖，公司决定自今年起到2018年在技术实施上投入12亿美元，以强化电子商务、物流中心和店内服务体验，而联网试衣间就是其中一环。上个季度，公司百货商店的可比销售额没有出现下滑，凸显了尽可能地从每位购物者身上获取更多价值的重要性。

    诺德斯特龙并不是唯一一家正在探寻零售技术未来的公司。梅西百货（Macy’s Inc）旗下的高端连锁店布鲁明戴尔（Bloomingdale’s）最近也开始在五家门店内测试智能试衣间。这种试衣间内配备了固定在墙上的iPad，而不像诺德斯特龙那样设有带互动功能的试衣镜。

    消费研究公司WSL Strategic Retail的首席执行官温迪•利布曼表示：“你的顾客已经习惯了使用掌上设备浏览这一切内容，并获得帮助。而在试衣间，顾客实际上无法随意离开，这是一个机会。”

    eBay不久前为时尚品牌瑞贝卡•明可弗（Rebecca Minkoff）的两家门店研发了智能试衣间，诺德斯特龙的智能试衣间正是来自于那次研发成果。考虑到诺德斯特龙的百货商店之大、产品种类之多，其项目也更加复杂。所以从这个方面来说，这次测试更能说明零售商可以在多大程度上采用智能试衣间。诺德斯特龙没有透露该公司计划将这种试衣间推广到多少家门店——这取决于测试成功与否。

    魔镜魔镜告诉我，我应该买这件吗？

    在诺德斯特龙的智能试衣间中，顾客可以输入在销售区选定的商品，以及店员的建议。试衣间中还有条形码扫描器来识别店内的商品，如果顾客需要其他的尺码或颜色，她自己就能看到库存情况，并让店员送进来。

    Imagine you are in a changing room at a Nordstrom JWN -0.49% store trying on some clothes . You are looking for shoes to complete the look, or want to read product reviews, or maybe just summon an associate to bring you an item in a different color or size, rather than have to get decent again and go back out to the store floor (if you even decide not to leave).

    At two Nordstrom locations, one in Seattle, the other in San José, the upscale retailer is about to provide customers with technology by eBay EBAY 0.02% to do just that: next week, in select departments at those stores, Nordstrom will begin to test full-length mirrors that, with the tap of a customer’s finger, turn into interactive screens, effectively creating smart fitting rooms.

    The idea is to bring tech to an untapped part of a store where many customers ultimately make their purchasing decisions: the fitting room.

    “The way customers shop for clothes has evolved,” Jamie Nordstrom, the retailer’s head of stores and former leader of its Nordstrom Direct digital business, told Fortune. “How do we take all the information that’s available to customers while they’re sitting on the couch at home browsing and add that to the dressing rooms, so it’s the best of both worlds?”

    Getting the best of both worlds is the holy grail for retailers eager to take full advantage of their physical stores in this e-commerce era. Nordstrom, widely considered a technology leader among brick and mortar retailers, plans between this year and 2018 to have spent $1.2 billion on tech, including e-commerce, fulfillment centers, and in-store service enhancements, such as these connected fitting rooms. Last quarter, comparable sales at its department stores were unchanged, showing how important it is to keep pushing to get more out of each shopper’s visit to the stores.

    And Nordstrom is not alone in looking for what’s next in retail tech. Bloomingdale’s, the upscale chain owned by Macy’s IncM -0.71% , recently began trying out smart fitting rooms, equipped with wall-mounted iPads rather than Nordstrom’s interactive mirrors, at five of its stores.

    “You have shoppers used to having all that content and help in the palm of their hand,” said Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail. “Here, you have a literally captive audience, so there’s the opportunity.”

    While Nordstrom’s smart fitting rooms build on what eBay also recently developed for fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff‘s two boutiques, it is a more complicated project given how much bigger Nordstrom department stores are and how much more inventory they hold. And so in that regard, this test will be more telling of how the smart fitting rooms can be adopted by retailers broadly. Nordstrom won’t say how much of a roll-out it is planning—the success of these tests will determine that.

    Mirror, mirror on the wall-should I buy this?

    In the Nordstrom smart fitting rooms, shoppers will be able to enter with items selected on the sales floor, along with suggestions from the associate. They will also be equipped with barcode scanning to identify what is in the store so if a customer needs an item in another size or color, she can see for herself if it is in stock and instruct the associate to bring it.