Calabasas-based FaceCake Marketing Technologies Inc. will showcase Swivel, a 3-D virtual dressing room, at the National Retail Federation’s 101st Annual Convention & EXPO in New York City this week. The company, which specializes in personalized interactive marketing solutions, will display Swivel in Microsoft’s booth, integrating it with Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows. The combined technologies allow for both in-store shopping as well as a digital out-of home branding experience. Swivel allows customers to virtually try-on individual articles of clothing or entire outfits as well as swap sizes or gather items from various departments and floors within a store. The technology also adds backdrops and environments to complete a look and utilizes social media integration to allow shoppers to share looks through Facebook and Twitter. Swivel also appeals to retailers in that it allows them to easily cross-sell merchandise and provides valuable shopper metrics and reporting including how long an item is tried on, what it was paired with and how many friends a shopper showed it to. FaceCake founder and CEO Linda Smith said the company was “excited” to collaborate with Microsoft on the new technology as a way to create an immersive and engaging experience for retailers and shoppers. “With Swivel’s real-time virtual Try-On and personalized shopping advice, it’s never been easier to sample a variety of head-to-toe looks without having to hunt through every department in a store,” Smith said. “When we put Swivel in front of real shoppers during our recent mall tour, they tried on three times as many products as a typical dressing room, and a staggering 77 percent shared their new looks with family and friends.”
