Macy's Dressing Room Tablets Deliver Clothes Via Chutes

Amazon is chomping up a growing number of consumers, and other retailers — particularly those of the brick-and-mortar sort — are feeling the pressure. Macy's is trying out new methods to retain customers, and one of those methods is putting tablets in dressing rooms. The idea is that while anyone can buy something online, they can't try it out over the Internet to see how it looks before buying...meaning that, at least for now, physical retail stores still have an edge, and they're doing everything they can to keep it.

The information comes from Bloomberg, which reports that Macy's is outfitting its dressing rooms with tablets to help sharpen that edge it has against online retailers. This a test at this point, and it is being conducted at the Manhattan Beach, California store — specifically in the store's athletic and women's swimsuit departments.

Whether Macy's plans to roll the use of (more) technology to other stores hasn't been stated. With the California store, though, users will be able to enter a dressing room and select the apparel item they want using the tablet (or the related app on their own smartphone). This includes selecting the specific size they want to try on.

That item will then be shuttled directly to the customer via a chute that ends in the fitting room — the swimsuit or basketball shorts will be, most literally, dropped straight down into the dressing room on command. The need to leave the fitting room and hunt for the item yourself has been eliminated. According to Bloomberg, Macy's will "likely" extend this trial to include lingerie.

SOURCE: Bloomberg