Top London shopping street installs beacons in 100 stores

Regent Street

One hundred retailers with stores on London’s upmarket Regent Street, one of the city’s busiest shopping locations, have installed Bluetooth Low Energy beacons that trigger personalized offers and communications for shoppers who have downloaded a mobile app developed by landowner The Crown Estate.

“Beacons are currently installed in around 100 stores on Regent Street with more installations planned in the future,” David Shaw, head of The Crown Estate’s Regent Street portfolio, told NFC World+.

Participating retailers include Hackett, Karl Lagerfeld, Sebago, Anthropologie, Armani Exchange, Brasserie Zedel and COS.

The Regent Street app listens for beacons placed in each store so that, as shoppers walk past, they receive alerts ranging from information about new products, to upcoming events, to exclusive offers only available to those shopping on the street that day.

The app builds a profile for each shopper so the content they receive is tailored to their preferences. But The Crown Estate insists its app allows customers to choose the brands they wish to connect to and does not track their data.

“This is a fantastic example of how Regent Street is continuing to evolve as the world’s most successful shopping destination, bringing together online, physical and now mobile retailing to provide an experience which delivers across all of the platforms that appeal to 21st-century shoppers,” Shaw says.

“Success in retail in the 21st century is strongly linked to how you engage your customers in store and online,” adds Paul Lorraine, UK general manager of French luxury leather goods company Longchamp.

“Regent Street already has a reputation for being the place to be for brands like ours, and the new mobile app will bring the digital and physical together, providing an exciting new way for us to speak to our customers.”

The introduction of the new Regent Street app and BLE beacons forms part of The Crown Estate’s £1bn Regent Street regeneration programme. The app was developed by digital marketing firm Autograph.

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