Oak Labs Smart Fitting Room Takes Shopping To New Levels

Prada and Nordstrom have experimented with the idea, and Macy’s has interactive dressing rooms in a few of its stores as well.

To start, when a customer brings an item in the fitting room, the Oak Labs mirror detects which item is in-hand through RFID tags and that piece is shown immediately on the mirror. Depending upon the amount of customization, the smart mirror could cost $10,000 to $15,000.

However the good news is that if you’ve always been curious about what a smart fitting room might be like, Ralph Lauren’s Polo flagship store on Fifth Avenue might be worth checking out. There are plans to unveil the remaining eight mirrors in additional Polo doors in high-performing markets next month.

The new Oak Fitting Rooms boast an intuitive, touch screen mirror that creates an immersive, yet noninvasive, shopping experience for customers. Trying clothes on at the store is still an integral part of the shopping experience, because there’s no telling just how well one size will fit. “Being half naked and having to hope that someone sees you when you pop your head out, that’s never been a fun experience”, she said.

The sales associate receives an alert via their iPad. Instead, they are informed of the exact style, color and size, as well as exactly where an in-store item is located. If it’s not on the floor and in a stock room, they are given the number to call the stock room to get the product.

Oak Labs was cofounded earlier this year by former head of retail innovation at eBay enterprise group, Healey Cipher along with Michael Franklin, Flynn Joffray, and former head of design at eBay retail innovation Darren Endo.

After a key investor pressured eBay to reorganize, eBay’s retail innovation unit was in flux.

Users that find themselves in a Oak Labs-enabled fitting room will be able to control the lighting of the room to check out their outfit, ranging from bright natural light to sunset to a club setting.

Put another way, those insights are all about allowing retailers to collect data. The smart mirror can track each item taken into the dressing room and keep track of how shoppers are interacting with the clothes. Is a jacket frequently being tried on, but isn’t selling? Are they buying recommended items? This simple feature ensures fast service and even eliminates untimely encounters with sales associates when the shopper is half-dressed.

Of course, robots can’t do everything, which is why Oak Labs has also set up functionality to request an associate.

Eventually, as consumers become more comfortable with this type of technology – read: less freaked out by it – the level of customization will continue to increase, says Cypher. The new full-size Oak mirrors are able to synch up with the store’s inventory and P.O.S. system. “Everything we build has to be human”, he said, stressing how the fitting room is meant to be inviting and engaging.

“There’s this narrative that ecommerce collects better data-but online, it’s black and white”, Cypher told Entrepreneur.com. “The physical world contains all these shades of grey that are truly interesting”.

You can check out Oak Labs for yourself right here.

In Cypher’s vision of the near-future, if that same blonde shopper was to try on a cashmere turtleneck, the dressing room wouldn’t just recognize the item – it would also access her entire purchase history, her lighting preferences and her interactions with previous sales associates along with hundreds of other data points.