First, we carried out some studies and surveys to find out more about what shoppers find frustrating during Christmas and New Year; some of the top examples included ‘long queues’ ‘overcrowded shops’ ‘carrying too many bags’ and ‘finding your purse/wallet at the till’.

This is where our idea for ‘contactless clothing’ was born as we wanted to provide a quick method of payment - this is obviously where contactless payment comes into its own - that didn’t involve people having to scramble around for their cards.

Putting two and two together, we thought the next logical step was to add contactless payment technology onto an easily accessible item of clothing, commonly worn during these months - the obvious choice to us being the humble scarf.

As it turned out, this was also one of the more popular options when we then asked our polls the question: ‘Which item of clothing would you want to use for contactless payments when shopping at Christmas?’.

So, we made a prototype…
How it works

Card Cutters Contactless Scarf

Our prototype scarf has a contactless payment chip cleverly placed at one end, just above the tassels.

It works the same way as your standard contactless credit or debit card, as all the wearer needs to do is drape the chip over the payment terminal on purchase of £30 or under and make a swift and easy payment.

The idea is that you as the purchaser can save time, rather than having to fumble around for your card - this would also be particularly effective for those with lots of shopping bags. Equally though, a business would also be able to get through more sales in a shorter timeframe.
Future developments?

If this method of payment was to take off, it’s fair to say that there’s a world of possibilities available.

Another popular choice from our survey was for ‘contactless cufflinks’, as well as suggestions for things like contactless gloves, handbags and bracelets. Again, each of these could be utilised like our scarf to provide similar levels of convenience.

While this scarf is very much only a model version, it could certainly go a long way to relieving the stress that over half of our surveyed shoppers claimed was caused by tackling the highstreets at Christmas and New Year.

For the moment, it would seem that the best thing for both businesses and consumers alike is to make sure you have traditional contactless payment options available. This could then help reduce the hassle and make the whole experience a little quicker and a lot merrier!