Clothing rail shows social media likes

O2 Business has installed a digital clothing rail in Tyrers, which displays the popularity of items using real-time social media ‘likes’.

Retailers have been exploring ways to bring online shopping preferences into physical stores, with recent examples seeing interactive mirrors and an ecommerce mall in Singapore. A historic department store in the UK, dating as far back as 1888, has installed the first live-feed, digital clothing rail in the run up to Christmas.

Many of the businesses in St Helens, a town in Merseyside, England, are receiving a digital makeover from O2 Business. “Towns and cities that are digital seem to be more prosperous,” says Ben Down, Business Director at O2, and that’s why the project hopes to make the local community in St Helens more connected. The live-feed clothing rail installed at department store Tyrers, displays the physical items which are also on their Facebook and Instagram pages. As users ‘like’ pieces online, a meter will fluctuate in real-time, according to the corresponding item’s popularity. O2’s research demonstrated that social media trends are a significant factor in determining what shoppers buy.

Projects like this could help high street stores stay connected with online shoppers, while still offering consumers the physical interaction with products. How else can retail businesses integrate the online with the offline, and provide consumers with the best of both?