Try before you buy

'Tryvertising' - a new trend that lets consumers experience a product virtually before they buy it - has prompted an online watch retailer to develop an app that lets would-be customers see how a watch looks on their wrist before they commit to it.

Canadian Nuevo Watches offers a form of virtual tryvertising with its new app, reports global trend monitoring website Springwise.com.

Click here to find out more!
Compatible with the iPhone and the 4th generation iPod touch, the Nuevo app from Monokromik lets users try on and select watches in the Neuvo watch collection without physically touching them.

The free app is available for download from the iTunes store (search 'Monokromik'); it requires iOS 3.1.3 or later. Once it's downloaded, users can virtually try on any of Montreal-based Nuevo's four CAD 45 watches, which come in black, bronze, gold or silver. The watches are only sold online, which makes the app especially useful.

Website: www.neuvomonde.com

Thanks to insideretailling.com.au

Ice Cream Vending Machine!

Innovative marketers have begun reinventing how consumers engage with their products by transforming yesterday's transactional vending machines into today's powerful brand experience machines.

Enter Moobella.com

This innovative Ice Cream company has made choosing your ice cream an interactive, unique and engaging experience.

Moobella's revolutionary Ice Creamery Machine has made making ice cream simple. Using an interactive touch screen allows you to "make your own" delicious hard scoop ice cream – fresh, on-the-spot, in 3 easy steps and in only 40 seconds!

You can actually make up to 96 different combinations, choosing from 12 flavors and delicious mix-ins, in both Premium and Light ice cream. The MooBella® patented fresh churn technology blends, aerates and freezes your selection to create a perfect mouth-watering scoop of ice cream.

Have a go at making your own online: www.moobella.com

Store Renovations

We all know that store windows, when done well have the ability to really lift public mood. So given that insight it's nice to see some retailers going to town on their refurbishments. After all, why should a renovation leave the window looking shabby and dull.

I think all retailers should take a leaf out these guys' books:

Gucci in New York



Nespresso in Paris:



Christian Dior, New York:





And then of course no-one can forget Gap's famous demolition ad of 2005:

eBay for Wine Lovers!

Opening today is Australia's first dedicated wine auction house - Crackawines.com.
The brainchild of Wine Ark founder Dean Taylor and digital media specialist (and current COO of Carsales.com.au) Shane Pettiona.

Cracka’s Wine Auctions will begin everyday at 1pm, seven days a week where prices start at the RRP and continue to fall until all the stock has been sold. When you click to purchase it locks the price. Shop too early and you could miss out on a super-low price. Leave it too late and there may be no more stock left.

It follows a similar model to that of theoutnet.com, whose 'Going, Going, Gone' sales are the same reverse type of auction - once the sale clock starts counting the price drops - and will only run for a limited time.

And delivery is quick aswell with Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane customers assured to expect delivery of their auction purchases within 48 hours.

And as if you needed more reason to start bidding Cracka Wines is offering a $25 credit to new members and a chance to win $5000 in cash. In addition, all buyers go into a weekly draw for a bottle of Penfolds Grange during 2010.

Zara now shopping online

Finally, Zara have opened online shopping. Complete with Zara's famous 'look book', catalogue, newsletter subscription and magazine. You can browse through 1000's of current styles for men, women and kids.

The catch? Delivery is only available in Germany, Spain, The canary Islands, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK. So get on the phone to your European mates and start shopping through them!

What I'm obsessed with this week..

When the fashion store Topshop opened in New York just over a year ago, a torrent of hype ensured there were queues of shoppers at the door on the first day. There was a blizzard of red, white and blue ticker tape to mark the moment, and at the opening party A-list celebrities including Jennifer Lopez and the editor of US Vogue, Anna Wintour, rubbed shoulders with Topshop's chunky billionaire owner, Sir Philip Green.

Six weeks ago, just a few hundred yards further along Broadway, another big name in British fashion retailing – AllSaints – arrived in the Big Apple with an altogether lower-key launch.

But the word in the rag trade is that it is going down a storm with New York's fashion-conscious consumers, and has taken more than $1m in its first two weeks – beating the takings at Topshop, whose shop is almost twice the size.

The 70-strong AllSaints chain is a little bit Goth. Its edgy clothing rails are a sea of black, beige, and grey. Its trademark motif is a skull and its speciality is the distressed look; clothes made to look well worn-in and scuffed Victorian-style boots without laces.

It's not cheap: leather jackets are north of £300; there are 45 graphic and skull-print T-shirts at up to £80 a piece; and more than 100 dresses averaging around £50 to £250. However, that doesn't seem to deter the masses who are paying not just for the trend that is All Saints but the sensational brand experience they get when they walk into one of their stores.



And what's interesting is that it doesn't advertise, preferring to drum up sales from free mentions in the fashion press and customer referrals. Equally, no staff are allowed to speak on behalf of the business.

What they do however is to promote the All Saints brand to their target by association. In NYC this Summer they have teamed up with the Williamsburg concert series, Jelly Pool Parties. At the event they set up an AllSaints pub where guests drank complimentary cocktails by Sailor Jerry rum and Dos Equis beer. The pub venue was decked out in their traditional heritage East End style with an antique bar, authentic piano and distressed AllSaints furniture.

All Saints have also teamed up with Agyness Deyn and fashion journalist Fiona Byrne who video blogged the event for their newly launched website NAAG.com and interviewed Alexa Chung, fashion designer Christian Siriano and model, Becka Diamond.

Their 'Flipbook' station was also housed in an AllSaints on-site container, which was painted by a local NYC artist. Every participant has a short clip filmed which is then turned into an original, hard copy flipbook and a digital version for them to share on Facebook and Twitter.

This is a retail brand that customers want to engage with both on the high street and off and one to watch for the future.


Thanks to The Guardian UK

Dixon's

UK electronics retailer Dixons earlier this year launched a wonderful print campaign across Great Britain. With a well executed strategy, they cleverly used the insight that customers generally shop around for the best bargain, yet still want a great experience in store. So what better way to communicate their price advantage than by taking the piss out of the big department stores: