
Realtime "Likes" displayed on retailer's clothing hangers - smoody
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/6/3002270/fashion-like-facebook-brazil-cea-clothes?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews
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corin_
I wonder if the logic behind this is straight-faced usage ("people will find
it useful when shopping") or marketing ("this sets us apart - nobody will
really care, but it will grab their attention").

I hope it's the latter, because the former would seem to me to be a hilarious
case of trying to compete with etailers at their game, without realising what
a flawed strategy that is. But I've met plenty of people I can imagine
thinking it's a good idea, so unsure.

Either way, the geek in me loves what they've physically done.

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skymt
One of the huge advantages of online shopping is the ability to see customer
feedback as you browse. Backporting that to physical stores might not let them
beat etailers at their game, but it might help close the gap.

~~~
corin_
That's one way to look at it, and maybe you're right, but the other side of
the coin (and the one I'm leaning towards) is that this is an area where
retailers cannot beat etailers, they should be focussing their time and money
on USPs, aspects that beat online shopping, not aspects where they can become
slightly less behind online shopping.

On the other hand, people who are put off by the idea that thousands of other
people bought the same shirt aren't so likely to shop at chains like C&A
anyway.

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neonkiwi
The gamble being made here is that customers want to buy clothing that is
popular.

I wonder if this might signal the exact opposite of what a shopper is looking
for. Instead of clothing being an expression of unique individuality, he or
she sees the huge number of people who have 'liked,' and possibly purchased
the same item. Not that customers are normally fooled of course, but the
volume of sales aren't usually brought to their attention so directly.

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mhb
Doesn't this also help customers who want to buy clothing that is less likely
to be seen on other people?

Which requires the reference to the xkcd ( _If you're quick with a knife,
you'll find the invisible hand is made of delicious invisible meat_ ):

<http://xkcd.com/958/>

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MichaelApproved
Great marketing for their Facebook page. How many people will have fun with
this by finding the item on their phone and hitting like just to watch the
counter go up?

They drive more people to their Facebook page to like something which will
drive more people to the page and store.

Of course, of this happens, it'll be a short lived novelty. We'll see how much
this helps afterwards.

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reginaldo
Brazilian here... For now, not many people, as mobile internet doesn't have a
lot of penetration here, unfortunately (about 20% last I heard) and even in
areas where it does, the quality of the phones still isn't very good, with
many people accessing the internet with the old feature phones instead of
smartphones, and the (mostly android) smartphones are barely capable of
running Angry Birds).

But it will grow a lot, with forecasts saying it will be about 60 to 70% by
the end of 2014.

For now, mobile internet is somewhat restrict so showing some initiative in
this area is good for the C&A brand, because it associates it with a feeling
of status, which normally doesn't come when one is thinking about C&A. So good
for them. I haven't seen the hangers in the stores yet but will check them out
(and try to see the counter going up) soon.

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evoxed
My question is how effective will this be based on showing the number of likes
alone? If you go to the store and see a string of numbers associated with each
item on sale at what point does it lose its meaning? For example, I see one
item over 1000 and one with just under 200. It's either liked five times more
by a random sampling of socialtech-aware shoppers, or it's just a difference
of 800 people from a group of 280,473 people (the number of likes on their FB
page) which is less than insignificant. I'm sure at least a few people will
start to get headaches as they try to manage what their "sweet spot" is for
pants, jackets, shirts, etc. _each_.

Edit: I do think it's an interesting start, and at the very least I'm sure it
will look good to marketing by encouraging more people to "like" what they
buy– whether or not that leads to more buyers in the end I don't know.

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officialchicken
Amazing, I'd never thought of a hanger as a display device - much less a
haptic one. Other data sources can be added for the consumer, but the data
gathered by the retail store could provide some amazing insights.

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benologist
Aticle hijacked from

[http://www.springwise.com/fashion_beauty/brazilian-
fashion-r...](http://www.springwise.com/fashion_beauty/brazilian-fashion-
retailer-displays-facebook-likes-items-real-world-stores/)

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waiwai933
Is there any way for the hangers to detect what clothing is currently on them
(e.g. RFID)? If not, how are they going to deal with the issue when clothing
inevitably ends up on the wrong hanger, if at all?

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sargun
The better question is, does it actually matter? If this is a marketing ploy
then we can just assume that its an attention grabber. For all we know, it
could be a PRNG that increments when it feels like it.

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postit
I went to iguatemi shopping in sao paulo to test this stuff, it it apparently
work, there's no rocket science behind it, because, you're not allowed to take
those pieces from the hanger since they are a simple "thermometer".

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personlurking
I had this idea, minus the FB angle, for restaurants. Imagine if the best
dishes were somehow rated (like films on IMDB). I know everyone has their own
taste but if I saw something I normally wouldn't order had '5 stars', I'd
surely try it.

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binarysolo
Pretty sure there's a few startups that already do that. Lemme Google...

... ah, Foodspotting is the website, and Oink is a mobile app that does a
similar thing.

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rbn
Oink shutdown

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TazeTSchnitzel
Whether it's useful or not, it's a pretty cool idea, no? Bringing Facebook
like counts into the "real world".

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subLimb
This seems like it would be much more useful on a product that you can't try
out and examine in the store.

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lopatin
That's a good point. Where this would really be useful, is online stores ...
wait

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eps
This is just begging to be gamed :)

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Moneyherd
Pink check lumberjack shirts are going to be the new rickroll.

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adnam
I already feel that the world is a better place

