Hointer

Apparently, I’m a spearhunter. I discovered this on my way out Wine World last week, backpack loaded with a quiverful of grappa.

I loped past the space on the south west corner of the Wine World / Cosmopolitan Apartments building and almost missed the transformation underway. As far as I can remember, the space hasn’t been occupied since the Bavarian-themed Best Western went out of business 10+ years ago. Today, it was.

In one corner, three desks with giant 3x” iMacs and three young men who, from their, shall we say, “casual” hairstyle and dress, I took to be coders. In the center of the room, a, shall we say, “stylishly” dressed woman and all around them, the skeleton of a clothing shop: single pairs of jeans and jackets hung like drying pelts from a thin wire. A line of bone-white, three-walled towers promised dressing rooms to come.

What I had wandered in to, it turned out, was Hointer: the prototype of a new type of clothing store, co-founded by Nadia Shouraboura, former Technology Veep  for Amazon’s Global Technology Platform, and now the woman directing from center stage.

With a Slavic accent, she explained: men do not like to shop (speaking only for myself, I find no fault in this theory). They are “spearhunters” who want to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

Further, they are gadget freaks.

Thus, the concept behind Hointer: men will wander the brick-and-mortar shop and, when they see something they like, skewer it with the custom app they have installed on their phone. When they arrive at their designated dressing room, the items they selected will be waiting for them, in their size, no cheery small talk required. Items are then tried on, and the “no’s” are placed in a designated slot and also removed from the mobile app’s cart. “Yes’s” can then be purchased while still in the dressing room, with the touch of a wall-mounted tablet and a slide of a credit card on the attached card reader. After that, customers are free to go with purchase in hand.

While Nadia focused on the benefits to the customer (speed and efficiency), it’s obvious there are other benefits of the model: the store not only knows what you’ve bought, but what you tried on, which it might use later to focus it’s buying and alert you when appropriate items are available.

The Hointer at NE 45th St and 4th Ave NE is the only Hointer store thus far, but not, in the founders vision, the only store forever. It’s a prototype of a chain of stores to come. Indeed, the coders I saw in the corner will remain after the store opens, watching and hearing the customers use their software, available to debug on a moment’s notice, but also to understand how their work is being experienced, which can drive rapid iteration and innovation.

Hointer will offer 120 types of jeans from an assortment of 23 U.S. designers. That’s the main focus at this point – a large and varied assortment of jeans, comparably priced to Nordstrom. There are also unique types of belts available, as Nadia explains she looks only at interesting items while buying for the store (she showed me an interesting laser-etched belt made in Canada). As the store grows, they’ll carry shirts and other items as well.

Hointer (400 NE 45th St., Suite 110) is now open 7 days a week from 10:00am to 10:00pm, with free parking at the rear of the building. Stop by and try it out, and let them know what you think of the experience.