Digital snippets: adidas, Nars, Hermès, Cole Haan, Wall Street Journal, F-commerce

Some more great stories from around the web surrounding all things fashion and digital over the past week:

• adidas gives Facebook users personalised version of Ebenezer Snoop holiday campaign [PSFK]

• Nars creates a digital journey into the world of Andy Warhol [L2 Think Tank]

• Hermès launches on Tumblr and Pinterest [Hermès]

• Tumblr unveils accessories spotlight section sponsored by Cole Haan [Mashable]

• Wall Street Journal launches shoppable holiday gift guide [AdAge]

• F-commerce ‘too soon’ for retailers, says Facebook’s retail director [Marketing Magazine]

• The end of the smartphone era is coming thanks to computerised glasses [BusinessInsider]

• EyeSee store mannequins gather intelligence on shoppers [Gizmag]

• Ready to download your next pair of shoes? How 3D printing is turning bits into atoms [BusinessInsider]

• Facebook aims for luxury brands with study into how the rich use social [Econsultancy]

New start-up Tapestry gives shop floor a digital identity, signs Diesel as pilot partner

It goes without saying that mobile is set to play an ever-increasing role in the future of retail – be it for payment, loyalty and rewards, social content or more.

Enter then, Tapestry, a new start-up from the team behind London-based digital agency Guided Collective, that very nicely ties all those things together.

Launched in a pilot partnership with Diesel in the UK, this iPhone and Android app helps to provide shoppers with a 360 degree online-meets-offline experience.

Trialling at Diesel’s Westfield London store until December 21, it allows consumers to curate a collection of all the items they like as they shop by scanning existing barcodes (or by using NFC in enabled Android devices). From there, they can see information about each piece such as size, colour and price, as well as the digital content that surrounds it – expert reviews from bloggers for instance, alongside videos, runway shows and more.

In essence, it’s a physical or real-world bookmarking tool for the fashion industry.

Those bookmark sets – known as Tapestries of course – can then be shared across social networks, but better yet be bought straight from the smartphone too. There’s also the possibility for notifications on things like promotions and rewards.

Referring to itself as a mobile loyalty service, the Tapestry write-up reads: “On the one hand it links content and promotions directly to physical products via a consumer’s mobile. On the other hand it links all physical items in store to the retailer’s ecommerce site, re-shaping the retail experience both in and out of store.”

Simply put, it gives a retailer’s physical inventory a digital identity, something Sam Reid, founder of Tapestry, refers to as “joining up the dots”. Based on a cloud platform, it also does so simply and at scale, he explains. And the app is to be funded on that basis, with retailers paying a subscription fee for the service.

In addition, it gives retailers permission-based real-time access to consumer interests, and therefore data. “The user is saying ‘I’m interested in these shoes, this t-shirt and this dress. Let me know when they’re on sale, or if stock is close to selling out, or if you’ve some interesting content to share,” the Tapestry description explains.

It’s hoped more retailers will follow in Diesel’s footsteps, says Reid, suggesting others are already in talks. This makes the concept all-the-more interesting – rather than just being about one brand’s clothing items consumers might save and explore, it becomes about their entire shopping trip. Imagine being able to recall everything you’ve seen, read reviews around them, and pick and choose which ones you want to buy at a later date. It’d certainly simplify those occasions when you regret something you should have purchased and you can’t find it online.

Another interesting part for the future will be seeing this app develop alongside NFC. With this, consumers only need to tap items (hence the clever Tapestry name) to bring them up on their phone – effortless. As this technology becomes more commonplace across devices, that behaviour is likely to see a huge spike in uptake in the retail space, blurring the digital and physical lines ever more.

It’s worth checking out blogger Liberty London Girl’s exclusive link up with Diesel for the Tapestry launch too. And watching the video demonstrating Tapestry in action, below:

Retail’s mobile-led future loses sci-fi feel

Eric Schmidt

Looking back through my notes from Cannes Lions, I remembered the fact I wanted to flag up some thinking relevant to retail from Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, 2011′s Media Person of the year.

One of the most interesting speakers during the week of seminars, he covered everything from globalisation to self-driving cars and accessing consumer social graphs (which makes far more sense since following the launch of Google +).

He also spoke about the benefit of ‘cloud computing’ and asked delegates to imagine that everything they needed for daily life was accessible through their smartphone. [Not a bad focus considering this is a company that has previously said everything it now does is based on a “mobile first” policy].

You’re walking along the street in Cannes, he said, your phone knows you, knows who you are. You tell it you want a t-shirt. As you’re walking it tells you which stores are nearby that you can go to, and which ones have discount or offers on. It directs you to one of them and you go in. The shop assistants already know you’re coming and welcome you as you arrive. You take your t-shirt and pay for it through your phone.

Simple.

Now, that would have sounded foreign just a mere few years ago – science fiction almost. To many it probably still does. But when you consider the fact technology for location-based services and offers are commonplace, with mobile transactions (Google wallet) the latest focus, it’s all perfectly feasible. Schmidt further highlighted this at Cannes when he said a third of all checkouts in restaurants and retail stores will allow “tap and pay” through mobile phones within about a year.

The concept reminded me of one of my favourite-ever posts from Federated Media’s John Battelle: The Gap Scenario. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do now.

In it, he takes the idea of the retail experience itself to the next level, incorporating everything from customer service to CRM. Now not only does your phone know you, but the store does.

As Battelle highlights, however, while the technology and the platforms exist for such scenarios to play out, what’s not solved as yet are the business processes that sew it all together.

Watch this space. The term Google “branding” might just take on whole new meaning for retail.

Why retailers should know Jack Dorsey

I’ve just read the profile of Jack Dorsey, the man credited with creating Twitter, in this month’s issue of Vanity Fair.

It’s inspiring. At 34, Dorsey’s life has been insanely productive – everything from program writing to botanical illustration student, alongside a brief flirtation with fashion design in between.

Now, still chairman of Twitter and second majority shareholder, he’s also the CEO (and co-founder) of Square, a service that allows anyone to easily accept credit card payments via their smartphone by attaching a small square-shaped device. As author David Kirkpatrick writes: “Square can make anyone a merchant.”

For retail at every level, this is undeniably something to watch. The surge of m-commerce and the role of mobile payments are in heavy discussion at present; no one has nailed it on the head just yet, which is exactly why it makes for such good debate.

Dorsey’s plans for Square are big. Where Twitter became the new communications tool, this, he says, is the future payments network.

Sean Parker, of Facebook fame, comments: ““Maybe Square can become for Craigslist what PayPal is for eBay.” A big shout, but if Dorsey’s past experience is anything to go by, no doubt an achieveable one.

Dorsey’s ambition is to make life easier for people, the article explains; something he’s seemingly facilitating one invention at a time.

Add to that his devotion to design – the result of a childhood obsession with maps – and commitment to echoing this throughout his company, and I for one am sold.

I urge you to read it: Twitter Was Act One