From the university to the shop (and vice versa)

With the increasing competition from online shops, retailers are looking for new ways to attract customers to physical shops and enhance the shopping experience in brick-and-mortar stores. This arena offers challenges and opportunities for academic research. It represents an interesting application domain and it can catalyse synergetic cooperations between university, industry and retail operators, and can stimulate new research directions. The paper presents two case studies that exemplify these concepts, and discusses a set of applications that involve full-body interaction and a mix of relatively novel technologies (digital displays, smart phones, and smart lights) for increasing the shopper experience inside and outside traditional shops.