As an attendee of the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas last week, I was able to get a first-hand preview on a new release from Adobe: the Adobe Smart Bag. Adobe is now bringing IoT to the brick-and-mortar world. Functioning like a virtual shopping cart, the Adobe Smart Bag keeps a real-time inventory of what is inside the shopping bag, keeps analytics of in-store customers, and tracks where items are throughout the store.
How It Works
When the customer arrives to the store they will be given a Smart Bag in which they could add their desired items to. As the customer adds the item to their bag, the items are added to the paired mobile applications shopping cart. As the customer enters the dressing room, they are greeted by a large flat screen television which contains the items in their bag.
When the customer wishes to checkout, the Smart Bag’s technology will allow for an automatic checkout via the retailer’s application. The bag is designed with a hard, leather exterior, and a reusable interior that the customer can remove and take with them at the end of the shopping experience. Once the customer is ready they will remove the interior bag and can exit the store. The Smart Bag’s technology, which utilizes beacon technology and an RFID (radio-frequency identification) will trigger the purchase of all of the items contained in the bag.
The Smart Bag employs Bluetooth beacon technology, which is in the hardware of the bag, and an RFID, which every item’s tag has. These two technologies allow the communication between the bag and the item tag. When the interior bag is removed, the technology sends a message to the mobile app that the customer is checking out and making a purchase.
The Smart Bag technology is customizable to every retailer. For example, a paired mobile app is not a necessity for every retailer, the placement of the beacons in the store could shift, if a customer wanted to pay via a traditional checkout, and lastly, the bag will eventually acquire each retailer’s branding.
Added Value to Retailers
The Adobe Smart Bag is adding value that wasn’t previously present for retailers and in-store shoppers. Capgemini Consulting Research stated that in-store shoppers spend an average of 39 billion hours every year waiting in line at retail stores. Adobe aims to reduce this number of hours by optimizing the in-store shopping experience. Ultimately, this would streamline the physical journey of shopping, make customers happier, and allow retailers to have a better relationship with their customers.
Connected Experiences at Adobe Summit
The theme of this year’s Adobe Summit was Connected Experiences. For those of you wondering what this is, a connected experience is an engagement in which the consumer is invited to digitally engage with a brand.
In the sessions led by the Adobe team throughout the conference, it was prominent that they firmly believe that digital marketing is about selling an experience, and not just a product. To stay on top of what competition is doing, you must be an ‘experience business.’
