Article

French retailer Orchestra looks down the endless aisle

The children's specialty retailer turned to touchscreen kiosks to solve its out-of-stock issues.

June 28, 2013

Until recently, if a shopper needed a certain sized article of clothing or specific piece of furniture that was out of stock in a retailer's store, they had to order it the old fashioned way — a sales associate would call the order in and contact the customer once it arrived.

In the case of French retailer Orchestra, this process resulted in a high level oflost sales, since many customers would leave the store empty-handed and shop elsewhere for the item. But thanks to interactive retail technologies and the wave of "endless aisle" kiosk applications, those days are quickly fading into oblivion.

Orchestra recently tapped the technology providers at IntuiLab to create an interactive application now deployed in five stores in France and planned for a future rollout to all locations in the country.

IntuiLab's CMO Geoff Bessin said the IntuiFace software platform enabled the flexibility needed by retailers to create their own unique and interactive experiences.

"The challenge is to create experiences that can scale, both in terms of store rollout and on-device performance, capture the unique characteristics of a brand and easily adapt to changes as the business changes," Bessin said.

The application is hosted on a touchscreen kiosk, with an enclosure designed by PolyPixel and an interactive screen supplied by Elo Touch Solutions. It allows customers to scan a product barcode, pull up detailed product information about the item such as color, size and style, and place an order for in-store delivery if an item is not currently in stock.

In addition to in-store product ordering, the kiosk also encourages customers to discover Orchestra product collections and special offers, creating the endless aisle experience.

Although anyone can interact with the application to check inventory availability and browse sales and products, only Club Orchestra members can use the kiosk to make purchases, incentivizing new customers to join the retailer's loyalty program.

The special offers and product catalogues section of the application mirrors Orchestra's website. Information is accessed via web services exposed by Orchestra's IT back office and is adapted to fit the layout and design of the kiosk-based app.

Once a customer is finished shopping and proceeds to checkout, they are presented with their modifiable basket, with the ability to add or delete items, change and update items selected, and view cost and savings earned both via in-store discounts and through Orchestra Club membership.

A POS terminal is hosted in the same kiosk station, enabling Orchestra Club members to pay directly with a payment card. The customer is sent an email confirmation of their purchase, and also receives a printed receipt at the point of purchase.

According to Bessin, the larger-style kiosk was more fitting to serve Orchestra's desire for incorporating both the endless aisle and POS functions.

"The large form factor of a kiosk and its ability to incorporate peripheral devices enables retailers to create more comprehensive, feature rich and engaging experiences than possible on smaller form factor devices," Bessin said.

Read more about multifunction kiosks in retail.