When you browse Anthropologie’s stores, you feel as if you’re wandering through an artsy home, where there are sure to be closets full of eclectic outfits, bedrooms with bohemian quilts and kitchen tables with mismatched dishes. But when you visit its e-commerce site, you get none of that feel; you’re just scrolling through an unimaginative grid of clothes worn by wooden mannequins.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Mar Hershenson is founder and chief executive of Revel Touch, a company that makes apps that allow shoppers to browse more thoroughly.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The Anthropologie site on an iPad. The company is trying to convey some of the flavor of its stores via the new app.
Anthropologie wants to change that, and thinks the tablet is the key. For the holiday season, it has commissioned a new iPad app, designed to give shoppers a flavor of its own store, but also to offer a new way to shop, by allowing people to browse, mix and match items, and view multimedia features in ways not possible in stores, print catalogs or online.
The company is not alone. Many retailers, as varied as Saks Fifth Avenue and Wal-Mart, are putting out new iPad apps in time for the holiday season. These apps do away with scrolling through pages of items online, and aim to make shopping more entertaining.
“There’s always been a little bit of a disappointment with the online experience, because the Web site needs to be practical and doesn’t engage the customers as well as the store experience and the catalog,” said Chris Love, director of portfolio management at Anthropologie. “We’re thinking about the iPad as a new channel that needs to be treated differently.”
Just 8 percent of online shoppers own tablet devices, and retailers, on average, have spent an anemic $14,000 on tablet apps, according to Forrester Research. But 60 percent of tablet owners use them to shop and many, especially young people, say they prefer shopping on tablets to smartphones and even computers.
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