LONDON, United Kingdom — Fixed product prices could be a thing of the past with Spaaza MyPrice, a patent-pending service that personalises in-store prices based on a customer's social influence or loyalty to the brand. To view their personal price, customers scan a product's MyPrice tag and log in via Facebook. The discount is calculated according to their interactions with the brand and influence on the social network. The retailer can also suggest actions to drive the price down even further, for instance 'Liking' the brand on Facebook or sharing the product with friends. When they're happy with the final price, the shopper 'claims' it to receive a discount code redeemable at purchase. The system can also be configured to operate according to customer loyalty and frequency of purchase. As well as personal pricing, retailers can also use Spaaza to offer discounts according to things like a customer's age or birthday, time of day and local weather.

Spaaza MyPrice is currently being trialed by brands in South Africa. Quiksilver is testing the service in four stores, while DC Shoes has tested the idea of inviting customers to post images to Facebook for an additional discount. In both cases, the retailers receive significant information from the service, including scan-to-sale ratios broken down by demographic details.

Turning images into stores is Stipple Shopping. Stipple is an online platform that enables image owners to tag their photos with Stipple 'watermarks.' These permanent tags remain attached to all copies of an image, whether it's reposted on a fashion blog, Tweeted or added to a Pinterest board. Anyone who clicks on a Stippled image can do things like view relevant product shots, browse related items and buy directly from the image rather than having to click through to another website. The 'in-image stores' are integrated into retailers' existing purchase systems, creating a frictionless customer journey from browsing to buying. As well as providing a platform for monetising images (for example, party pictures) which are more likely to be distributed and shared than conventional advertising, Stipple also provides retailers with valuable real-time engagement and reach analytics on how people are interacting with their content.

BeauCoo is a shopping app that connects women with similar body dimensions, so that they can share style ideas and discover new brands that suit their body size and shape. With the tagline 'Pics on someone your own size!' BeauCoo was originally designed to address the shopping challenges of plus-size women, but has since been adopted by people of all sizes.

After setting up a BeauCoo profile with their body measurements, users are matched with people of a similar size and shape and can select 'Fit to Match' for a refined list of exact size matches. As well as sharing tips with the community, they can upload photos of themselves to express their likes and gather feedback, as well as 'Like' or 'Want' items they encounter.

For retailers, BeauCoo provides insights into which items interest customers the most, their body shape, where else they like to shop and their social influence level within the BeauCoo community. BeauCoo can also be built into a retailer’s e-commerce site to improve product discovery based on a shopper’s body shape and increase purchase confidence, reducing the rate of returns. Retailers can target users with online and in-store rewards based on their size, style or brand engagement level, time of day or location. These promotions have an average of 40 to 45 percent redemption rate to date.

Sheena Patel is features editor at GDR Creative Intelligence, a London-based foresight consultancy that identifies innovation in retail, brand and hospitality.