Nordstrom And eBay Are Testing Touchscreen Mirrors For Fitting Rooms This Black Friday

Nordstrom stores have teamed up with eBay to test out some brand new fitting room technology, turning the customer’s experience of trying on clothes into something out of a science fiction film.

According to Geek Wire, Nordstrom worked with eBay to develop touchscreen mirrors within fitting rooms of Nordstrom stores. The technology tracks Nordstrom clothing items brought into the fitting room and provides recommendations for additional accessories and outfits that the consumer might be interested in. The Nordstrom touch mirrors will have panels and pictures for customers to touch and manipulate, browsing the entire catalog within a single fitting room.

“Nordstrom and eBay Inc. are joining forces to bring the best of ecommerce technology into the physical world,” said Dan Evans, spokesman for Nordstrom. “Nordstrom has long been a leader in the retail industry for technology innovation to enhance the service experience we offer our customers.”

According to Internet Retailer, a barcode scanner mounted on the fitting room wall will allow the consumer to scan the item and find consumer reviews or product recommendations based on the selections made by Nordstrom stylists.

The touchscreen mirrors are not simply being tested by Nordstrom and eBay researchers, but real customers. Two mirrors will be unveiled in “connected fitting rooms” in two Nordstrom stores: Westfield’s Southcenter Mall in Seattle and Westfield’s Valley Fair in San Jose. The new technology will be available to the public by Thursday, which means Black Friday shoppers will be the first to try them out.

The lucky customers who find the mirrors will have the luxury of looking through every size and color of every piece of clothing in the Nordstrom store and find matching pieces for the items brought into the room. People will even be able to call for an associate to come into the fitting room and pay for merchandise through the mirror. In order to bring up the same information as the mirror touchscreens, Nordstrom employees will still have to scan the item barcodes. But in the future, the system may be able to communicate universally throughout Nordstrom through the use of RFID tags.

“Customers are very accustomed now to using digital,” said a Nordstrom spokesperson. “This two-store test takes what is great with the e-commerce experience and puts it in the dressing room to find out what matters to customers.”

To get an idea of how the Nordstrom mirrors work, check out the video below of a similar installation implemented by eBay in a Rebecca Minkoff store in New York.

While you might not be lucky enough to use these Nordstrom touch mirrors this Black Friday, there are still a lot of great deals to look for. Learn more about how to get on top of the Black Friday deals here.