Fans of Red Wing Shoes, be they open office urbanites or rust belt hard-hatters, can now enjoy a new, highly personalized in-store experience. The heritage footwear brand popular across a varied and wide swathe of the population has rolled out a new customized fit system across its more than 500 brick and mortar retail establishments. The AI-powered “ultimate fit experience” gives customers a uniquely personalized fit system across workboot, insole, and sock to provide the best possible footwear experience.
Store visitors hoping to walk out with an enhanced spring in their step will be greeted by a Red Wing store associate who starts off by having them create a personalized assessment of their work environment and safety requirements. After all, the iconic Made-in-the-USA shoe brand produces leather boots intended for heavy work. Red Wing Shoes was the primary footwear provider for American troops fighting in both World War 1, and World War II, and while the company has expanded to more fashion-forward products, its focus on service, safety, durability, and reliability continues to this day.
Once the assessment has been completed, the shopper’s unique-to-them results are combined with an artificially intelligent foot scanning solution from FitTech company Volumental. The Volumental 3D scanner provides a comprehensive assessment of the shopper’s foot in under five seconds. Next up, the customer walks across a pressure plate in the store that offers additional foot-fit context by providing a dynamic scan visualizing their walking gait and pressure points. The AI technology then takes all this data to create a 3D model of the customer’s feet, and matches it to the Red Wing library of work boots to provide a finely personalized recommendation tailored to the shopper’s size and support needs.
But that’s not all, in partnership with Superfeet custom insoles, Red Wing stores will also offer customers insole recommendations and allow them to purchase specially personalized, 3D printed footbeds that are unique to them and their movement patterns. It’s all part of the retailer’s goal of providing a best-in-class experience to its shoppers by optimizing the customer journey.
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This article originally appeared in the PSFK iQ report, Optimizing The Personalization Of The Customer Journey.