A few weeks ago prior to NRF we put together a tongue-and-cheek blog post suggesting the availability of a 3D iPhone for retail. Obviously there isn’t one. If there was, we’d know about it because that’s our job… to know about innovation in retail and help make the adoption of such innovation easier with cloud and saas strategy.

For those of you who don’t know, XOMNI is a cloud platform that makes development, deployment and scale of assisted selling and self-service experiences extremely cost effective. Yes, there’s a lot of people talking about the cloud, but we are highly focused on improving the in-store / on premise shopping and decision making experience for retail. That’s unique. To help our customers be successful we’ve brought together best of bread channel partners that fall into two categories. 1) Agency Partners – Companies that help with the design and development of any given experience. 2) Technology Partners – Companies that contribute to specific technology or infrastructure required by the experience. Magnetic 3D is our latest Technology Partner responsible for no-glasses 3D hardware and related services.

We recently partnered with Magnetic 3D to demonstrate how 3D could be used in the retail environment. Our experiment at NRF uncovered 3 obvious areas where 3D and specifically no-glasses 3D could benefit retail.

Attract and Initial Engagement. – It doesn’t matter how cool of an interactive experience your technology enables, if no one approaches it, it’s irrelevant. No-Glasses 3D tends to stop people in their tracks. We like this option for the initial attract mode.

Enhanced Collaboration. – Associate devices will become more of the norm in time. Extending the associate experience with the help of larger displays is an obvious next step. We are enabling that now with a technology called Omniplay which identifies compatible displays in the retail environment and then allows the associate to send all or part of the experience to it for a more collaborative and social experience. With Magnetic 3D you get that + an extra 3D wow moment.

Enhanced Endless Isle. – Floor space is always a premium. Because of that we get requests  to enable endless isle scenarios. In other words, highlight available product that’s not on hand. What is the next best thing to having the product on-hand? Full motion 3D video of the product.

Is there a place for 3D in the retail environment?

XOMNI puts a powerful engine for creating rich interactive experiences in the hands of retailers and Agencies that support them. Adding Magnetic 3D technology to our ecosystem gives many retailers that extra boost they’ve been looking for.