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Small kiosks bring large returns

February 14, 2005

Self-service kiosks play a prominent role in helping retailers meet their customers' increasing demands for more options and better service.

"Consumers have higher expectations of technology and what it can do for them," said Bruce Rasa, offerings' marketing manager for IBM's branded kiosk family of products. Rasa pointed to more widespread acceptance and use of photo kiosks, self-service airline check-in and gift registries.

To meet these expectations, a new generation of dramatically smaller kiosks is on the horizon. These kiosks are more flexible than conventional kiosks, but still meet the same high standards of retail-hardening that deployers expect in point-of-sale platforms.

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"This combination of small size and the ability to mount the kiosk anyplace in the store gives the retailer the maximum flexibility to embed the kiosk into the most relevant and useful store location for consumers," said Rasa, citing music and DVD preview stations as examples of smaller, embedded kiosks.

The new crop of kiosks, like IBM's Anyplace Kiosk, provides an almost ideal combination. These appliance-like devices also can include full-motion video for a compelling shopping experience.

Location is key

In kiosk industry publication Kiosk Business's Fourth Annual Kiosk Benchmark Study for 2004-2005, more than half of the respondents listed location as the most important feature in kiosk installations. "Location dramatically improves the potential value and usage to the consumer of a self-service kiosk," Rasa explained.

As with full-size kiosks, embedded kiosks are ideal for guided selling. This works best when consumers are faced with a variety of choices in one category, such as digital cameras. Informational kiosks can be attached to the store shelf where the cameras are located to aid customers in the decision-making process. The smaller size makes it easier to add more kiosks within a department or the entire store.

Office Max stores use embedded kiosks to help sell ink cartridges and printers. Mounted on the pegboard display, the kiosk seems to float among a sea of toner cartridges, according to Darby Williams, vice president of marketing for Active Decisions, a guided-selling solutions provider. The kiosks are positioned for maximum use, falling right in line with the shopper's natural behavior.

These next-generation kiosks can be embedded into existing shelving, allowing you to leverage your investment in store fixtures. Industry standardization to the Video Standards Association's VESA mount means the holes used to mount flat panels are a standard size and distance apart. As a result, you can move the kiosk to various areas within a store based on need, season or promotion. They can be mounted in the aisle, on an end cap or on a wall..

Thanks to the VESA mount, one of IBM's customers was able to install a kiosk on a pole, rather than on valuable end-cap space. The benefits to this solution were twofold: The customers were given an enhanced shopping experience, while the retailer kept valuable shelf space for merchandise.