RFID-enhanced (and immaterial) shopping experience

With the A1 Lounge inVienna, EOOS has created a new store concept for mobile phone company Mobilkom Austria. The most tangible thing in the mobile phone business is the signed contract - a sheet of paper. The services you purchase cannot be seen nor touched. In the course of the project, EOOS pursued the concept of re-materialization.

The 12 x 8 meter glass façade forms a hollow space into which clouds of fog are blown by fog machines. The distribution of the fog can be regulated so that different scenarios can be created at different times of the day. During the daylight hours, sunlight from the south-facing facade is filtered through the fog barrier. At night, the lighting reverses, with light radiating from indoors out into the street.

The entrance is a sliding door that pushes the fog clouds aside as patrons pass through. One enters the store through a tunnel of fog, lit by an illuminated glass floor.

Presentation islands seem to float on the luminous mat-glass floor that leads to the 'wing', a sculptural ramp rising towards the upper level. Positioned along this ramp are "future cubes" with holographic displays of mobile phones not yet available on the market.

On the lower floor, presentation and sales islands feature computer screens linked to the real products on display and to the customer's virtual shopping trolley. When they place their "ghost mobile" --an acrylic block with an integrated RFID chip-- on the surfaces, the customer can make purchases by loading the real and virtual products into the transparent object. The physical products are received at the cash desk.

The content of the islands, like the lighting system, can be geared to the time of day and to various types of target groups (business people in the morning, for example, and school children in the afternoon). Modifications can be made at any time via IP from the company's head office.

Via Frames.
Images: Ruppert Steiner, photgraph.

More rfid-enhanced shopping experience: Fashion coordinator using smart tags, the Prada store and many other examples of shopping+RFID experiences.