Selling “stuff” is as old as the human race. Actually, some biologists noticed that primates and other animals are also selling stuff, exchanging favours. Someone might go as far as claiming that flowers are windows used by plants to captivate insect imagination and sell them their pollen. Clearly in the case of human race selling, and buying, has reach crucial level of relevance, both for the individual and for the Society. If we, collectively, stop buying the economy crumbles.
The retail is the interface point that connects the (long) value chain resulting in the creation of the product to the customer.
This interface point is crucial to the seller (and to the value chain players) and has seen significant sophistication in the last century. Attracting the attention of a potential buyer is the first step, but that has to be followed by convincing him/her to buy, keeping him/her satisfied to increase the probability of fidelity and so on.
Although we have seen a lot of sophistication resulting from the studies and efforts by thousands of researchers and practitioners in these last hundred years there is a lot that remains to be done and we, at the Future Centre, feel that the future will reshape significantly the retail structure and the shopping experience.
There are a number of reasons to sustain our feelings: to name but two, the negative impact of the Web and the positive impact of technology evolution.
The negative impact of the web is a consequence of the opportunity of window shopping provided by Internet on our own PC (and television) from the convenience of our armchair, and then of buying what we like, having it delivered to our home.
The positive impact of technology evolution is related to the progressive sophistication of products making it possible to change the retail interface with the customer and often to extend it through the usage of the product itself.
Part of the activities of this project will be carried out in cooperation with Fabrica and Ars Electronica, in particular those related to the fashion retail.

The project activities are structured into tasks, each one representing a part of the overall retailing and shopping experience, namely:

1. The Edge - The liminal aspect of the store - the threshold - the window and the door. How are people attracted and what can be done to capture their attention?
   
   
2. The Inside- The shop floor, interior design, lighting and audio. How can new technologies create a captivating environment for a new shopping experience?
   
   
3. The Flow – Movement within the store, what can be done to move people around the shelves and up and down stairs?
   
   
4. The Product - How to augment product information and presentation through tagging, cameras, RFID and other new technologies? How can new technologies embedded in the product itself become part of the retail interface and shopping experience?
   
   
5. Store Networking - How to use networking to connect stores with other stores in the same chain, and to online services like e-commerce?
   
   
6. Handheld Devices - How to offer the customer additional information and services via handheld devices - PDAs and cellphones - that they bring into the store with them?
   
   
7. Personal Contextualization: How to take the shopper previous experience into account in the present shopping experience (matching present offer with previous items bought). Sharing of shopping experiences with other stores selling different goods or even different brands of the same goods.
   
   
8. Social Retail: How to share the shop experience, as it takes place, with friends and people belonging to the shopper social network; how to embed the shop into one’s social network?
   
   
9. Once in, Always there - How to use the product sold as an active link with the buyer and the user to bring them back, virtually and physically to the store.