Shopping, shopping everywhere

A few years back, the world of online and offline/bricks and mortar retailing had a definite vs between the two factions, presented as an epic duel, swords unleashed, between the old guard and the young upstarts.

But a mediator has stepped in and changed all that. And this mediator takes the form of SmartPhones and other mobile devices. The trend now is that it's not either/or, but both and better. Ads from online retailers that criticise the bricks and mortar world - and vice versa - look dated indeed.

A brand that characterises this meshing of the physical and digital retail worlds perfectly is Hointer which recently won the Most Contagious Start-Up Award. Hointer is a technology platform that enables bricks and mortar retailers to leap into the brave new world where physical and digital are meshed together. As founder Nadia Shouraboura says: "Now it's time to bring digital and physical together to make it spectacular."

To me it's a metaphor for progress and creativity in all fields: reconcile two seemingly opposing factions and create something brilliant. The Whoosh Fitting Room in the video above is certainly evidence of that!