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Supermarket savings: Seeing returns on kiosk deployment in grocery

May 9, 2011

Retail grocers are under scrutiny to prove strong return on investment (ROI) for anycapital expenditure or endeavor — especially technology — making the connection from investment to bottom line impact more important than ever. Exactly what the ROI is will depend on the goals of the project. Implementing new technologies such as self-service kiosks have the ability to provide both incremental sales and improved employee efficiencies making the 'returns' case much easier to make.

Take for example deli ordering, one of the top self-service applications for ramping up ROI in grocery. Consider the inefficient process of a shopper calling out his or her order to a worker at a deli, fresh fish and meat counter, or while at an in-store café. Self-service kiosks allow shoppers to visualize the item or product selection on-screen, choose recipe or deli ingredients using a touchscreen, and then verify the order. To improve up-selling in a deli environment, kiosk software can also "ask" shoppers if they would like a pound of cheese to go with their meat orders, or even alert them that the cheese is on sale. Once the order is placed, the kiosk prints out an order ticket and transmits the order to the appropriate department.

Where are the returns? Internal customer research has shown incremental sales increase 6 to 8 percent when a customer orders through a kiosk, and in turn, clerks can process 11 to 16 percent more orders during peak shopping hours with the same staff. That's because they can spend less time taking orders and more time fulfilling them. Plus, you have shoppers who don't have to wait for their orders during busy periods. They can continue to shop, maximizing their efficiency and thereby increasing their shopping experience. And while this is harder to measure, grocers know that a happy customer is a returning customer.

What's more, it's possible to increase the success of a grocery-kiosk deployment by offering multiple applications on the same kiosk. A deli-ordering kiosk could also offer recipes, nutritional information, loyalty coupons, price checking and wine pairing all on the same device.

When technology can add value in multiple ways, such as employee efficiency and sales uplift, it provides a compelling reason to justify the investment.