John Lewis boosts technology trials

John Lewis’ Oxford Street flagship store has become the first retail outlet to be fully mapped by Google Street View, enabling shoppers to virtually walk the aisles and plan their trip.
Designed by Ideal Insight, the virtual store covers all seven floors and, if successful, could be rolled out to other branches in the next two years.
The move is one of three trials the department store is running over the Christmas period to improve customer experience. Google recently added airports and train stations, including Gatwick Airport, Manchester and most of the London mainline stations, to its Street View database.
In addition, John Lewis is trialling transactional tablets in its Cheadle, Brent Cross and Peter Jones stores, to help customers beat the queues at tills. The tablets will be fully linked to the shop’s till systems, enabling customers to complete their purchase in the shop or arrange a home delivery with the member of staff who advised them on the shop floor.
It is also testing ChargeBox, a service that allows customers to charge their mobile phones and tablets for free while they shop. John Lewis has installed wall mounted units in the audio and TV departments in the trial stores, as well as free-standing units next to its ‘Place to Eat’ cafes in both shops. If successful, the ChargeBoxes will be rolled out to other John Lewis shops in summer 2014.
John Lewis director of retail operations development Simon Russell said: “We intend to keep investing and innovating in our shops so that they remain compelling and hassle-free places for customers, offering multiple reasons to visit them. Partly this will see us use an increasing amount of technology to make shopping easier and offer more ‘in shop help’.”

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