whizdumb

You have a barcode scanner in your pocket

Okay, this is pretty amazing. Your camera phone can now act like a barcode scanner and enable you to comparison shop on the spot. For example, you're at a Best Buy. You see a DVD you'd like to buy. Take a picture of the barcode and your phone will tell you how much it's selling at Amazon and give you the option to buy it on the spot. At the grocery store and the olive oil seems a bit pricey? Scan it and see if it's cheaper down the street. You download the free Scanbuy Shopper software to your camera phone. The possibilities are pretty mind boggling for this thing. I can't use it because they don't support Verizon but I'd love to hear how it works from a real person.

Upside down retail

Talk about disruptive retail. This store is literally upside-down. It's probably quite disorienting at first but is sure generates talk value. It's called Viktor & Rolf and I haven't been (it's in Milan, Italy) but would love to see it. There are lessons here for how to truly break up what is standard in a boutique, and perhaps even in malls, a grocery store within a store, pop-up retail, etc.