Instrumentarium Is the Leading Optics Retailer Company in Finland.

Introduction

Instrumentarium is the leading optics retailer company in Finland and has been selected 10 years in a row as the most Trusted Brand within the optics industry. The biggest possibility the industry has compared to many other industries is that the eyeglasses sell well during recession. The average purchase is around 250€, though the price competition is hard and the supply of cheap frames is growing. So Instrumentarium needs to be the forerunner in using customer helping technology to stay in top and maintain its position as the market leader.

The main problem that we are targeting is to improve the process of trying out different frames, e.g.

the difficulty of seeing and comparing different frames without your own glasses on. The solution will change the old fashion and space taking way of presenting the frames in stores. In addition of helping the company to meet the changing expectations of customers we seek an increasement in sales. We are mainly targeting old customers and people with glasses, but also the sunglass shoppers.

Smart Vision technology

Our Smart Vision technology will work ‘mirror-like’ on interactive touch screens with camera access. Smart Vision’s main features include measuring the facial proportions and suggesting suitable eyewear frames, offering unique and personalized customer service by saving customer’s previous preferences. Smart Vision allows the customers to be bold and try on all available frames and styles just with a swipe, even with one’s own glasses on. Smart Vision will offer a new, social way to do shopping, with the option of sharing real-time pictures in social media. At the same time, the company will get inside information of customers, save space with the new store layout and offer an upgraded shopping experience.

How and where?

We will initially bring Smart Vision to the market through a pilot project - by doing a makeover in a selected store and transforming the store concept by creating a ‘living room-like’, relaxing environment with sofas and several Smart Vision mirrors and tablets that will be available to customers’ use. Moving forward from the pilot model, we will also bring Smart Vision mirrors available outside all major stores as a marketing tool which will make the technology familiar for the customers.The next step would be using the same technology in pop-up campaigns at major train/bus stations. This will also help us to fulfil our strategy of bringing our services to small towns and where the customers are, like universities, offices and elderly homes.

We will evaluate the success of Smart Vision campaign based on customer feedback, surveys, sales numbers and by measuring social media buzz. We are interested in how many people are talking about it, reached by pictures shared through Smart Vision campaign and measuring posts tagged with #InstruSmartVision.

Comparing to other industries, optical shops haven’t been using technology for its full potential to create an omnichannel and easy customer journey. The positive effects of smart mirrors can be seen in fashion and beauty retailing for example, where interactive mirrors bring customers more options, expertise and enjoyment. These example companies have for example increased their sales expectations by a third, reduced premises and expanded their selection at the same time and created over all positive brand image. Optical retailer stores have all been looking the same, not differentiating themselves or targeting the problems of trying out new frames.For the optical industry it is important to get the customers into the stores, so bridging physical and digital shopping channels is the key.

Benchmarking the concept

We took glasses.com’s “VIRTUAL TRY-ON WITH 3DFIT”-app and Specsaver’s new digitally augmented customer journey, as our concept’s benchmarks. Whereas our concept may appear similar to these two, with further inspection one can notice that indeed they are not.

While glasses.com’s app’s functions