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It’s an exciting time to join the kiosk industry – glad to be on board!

The role of a trade media property is to serve as a forum for industry information and to harness this information to help industry members make productive decisions. Providing this service in a market changing as fast as the kiosk industry will test the acumen of even the most seasoned trade journalist.

October 31, 2016 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

What more exciting opportunity can one have than to be part of an industry on the cusp of change? An industry transforming the retail landscape, integrating new technology, meeting the needs of a digitally-empowered consumer?

For me, taking on the editorship of Kiosk Marketplace means having a front row seat to all the innovations taking place in an industry that brings consumers and service providers closer together. Mobile commerce, virtual reality, the Internet of Things, Big Data, social media, instant messaging, peer-to-peer networking – are all making kiosks more impactful and creating new possibilities.

The role of a trade media property is to serve as a forum for industry information and to harness this information to help industry members make productive decisions. Providing this service in a market changing as fast as the kiosk industry will test the acumen of even the most seasoned trade journalist.

How we got here

Ten years ago, big retail, travel and hospitality venues were the dominant kiosk locations. Touchscreens, remote machine monitoring, electronic locks, Internet-fed audio/visual streaming and cashless acceptance were making kiosks more relevant. Little then did we know how much innovation was in store.

At the time, Selfserviceworld Magazine, owned by Kiosk Marketplace’s parent company,  Networld Media Group, named Redbox the "hottest" self-service application to date, based on a reader survey. The kiosk was finding a role in the then rapidly-growing DVD rental market. In a 5-year period, Redbox had grown to 42,000 locations.

Serving as the editor of Automatic Merchandiser Magazine at the time, I was intrigued by Redbox's success, given the number of competitors in the DVD rental space. I identified the following interdependent factors in Redbox’s dominance of the DVD rental market: the support of a committed organization, careful attention to location selection, a seamless operational support structure, data-based DVD title selection, and a serious marketing plan. All boiling down to high consumer value.

Entertainment marketing has changed since Redbox’s heyday, to be sure, but the same success factors hold relevance to the kiosk industry as it faces more opportunities and challenges than ever.

Where we are now

Today, kiosks are making inroads in health care and restaurants.

They are also revolutionizing refreshment services, which touches the lives of anyone not working out of their home. Self-checkout kiosks in combination with self-serve merchandise shelves, known as "micro markets," are enabling work sites to provide a much greater variety of food and beverages with far less capital outlay than vending machine banks.

Other kiosk innovations are emerging. LinkNYC offers free Wi-Fi, phone service, device charging and access to city services, maps and directions.

The biggest challenge of all, however, has to do with the ecommerce revolution, better known as the "omnichannel revolution" by retailers and consumer goods providers.

Mobile and online commerce can accomplish much of what kiosks do more efficiently, such as scanning coupons, finding retail outlets, researching products and discovering special deals. This does not mean that kiosks don't have a role to play in ecommerce as it takes retailing beyond its traditional environments.

Tomorrow’s retail landscape could include strategically placed pickup kiosks, similar to Peapod's pickup lockers.

The U.S. Postal Service recently tested a concept with eBay using kiosks to make it easier for eBay sellers to scan packages for shipment. Sellers can scan a package at a kiosk at a shipping hub rather than waiting in line.

In emerging economies, kiosks deployed in rural areas now serve as collection and delivery points for packages and provide Internet connectivity to allow people to shop online.

Meanwhile, there will still be room to innovate applications that can’t be completed well on other devices, and to continue to push into industries like health care that are just beginning to embrace self-service.

Meeting the challenges

As exciting as the opportunities are, the path to success in changing markets requires exceptional diligence. New applications for established business tools are rarely easy to execute, and many well-conceived plans have fallen short of expectations.

Not long ago, as social media began making waves, Coca Cola, PepsiCo and Mondelez International all launched interactive vending machines, some of which allowed consumers to buy, gift and play video games. Despite great promotion, these machines failed to gain significant traction at retail, despite their outstanding R&D and marketing resources.

The greater the opportunity, so too are the challenges.

I look forward to hearing your take on how kiosks can assume greater relevance for today's digitally-empowered consumer.

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.