What are you doing this weekend? Where would you go to hang out with your friends and family? The answer is probably to a restaurant or a movie theatre or even a long trip. These days, you can’t have fun without spending money, as businesses look to capitalize on every aspect of our lives.
Capitalism rules in today’s world and the competitive edge is everything to businesses. Consumers have more options than ever to choose from, which means the businesses need to offer more to stand out from the herd. Sometimes, the smallest difference in the form of which store has a kiosk can make all the difference in whether a customer walks into store A or store B, which are just next to each other.
Multimedia is a very effective tool for mass communication and marketing. Screen a video or pictures of your advertisement on a decently large enough screen and put it where people can see it and you’ve surely gotten their attention. People love consuming content on digital displays, as evident from the boom of social media in the past decade. Hence, it would make sense to use people’s preferred medium of information absorption for their benefits, at least from a business perspective, to grab their attention and turn the focus on their products using kiosks and signages. Moreover, it is an added benefit if the interface is interactive as well, as it makes for a gratifying, rich and rewarding experience for the customer.
Retail businesses in shopping malls and complexes can benefit hugely from using kiosks, which can be strategically placed at the entrance or just outside the entrance, in the mall corridor. The first thing the customer sees as they walk past the store will be the kiosk screen, which will display the store’s latest exciting deals and discounts right there to invite them in.
Digital or interactive signages can also be mounted on the outside walls to show the same. A live countdown of the night’s sale ending or the next day’s sale starting can be used to pressure people by inducing the FOMO mindset in them.
Thus, a person who came to window shop may look to hop in to make a quick purchase. They can also browse through different products. whether an item is in stock before heading in. A vending machine may also be incorporated into a self-service kiosk so that they can be used to purchase items even when the store is closed. In the long term, these facilities can not only drive up the retail outlet’s footfall, but also increase the customer retention by offering returning customers various discounts and reward points that can be redeemed exclusively in their store purchases. Movie theatres in malls and even stand-alone theatres can also benefit by using kiosks to sell more tickets and fill more of their seats.
The shoppers who come to malls would love to see the latest movie trailers playing before them on kiosks, right at the mall entrance. If they’re interested, they can browse through the screenings and show times, select their seats and book tickets to the movie, all from the kiosk itself. It can play the role of a box office to give them the convenience of booking tickets without any queues and printing the hard copy of the tickets near the entrance itself and without even entering the theatre.
Busy restaurants can use kiosks as interactive menu cards that can show videos or multiple photos of the dish that the customer can scroll through before ordering. It can offer options for customizing the order, such as the choice of toppings on a pizza and whether the customer wants extra cheese. Digital signages mounted on walls or over the counter can display the special dishes for the day in an appetizing and interesting manner.
Kiosks placed in each floor can serve to display the schedule of events happening, and the menu for the day in the different restaurants at the hotel. One can also check for availability of the facilities like gym, swimming pool and spa and book any of them along with room service, all directly from the kiosk.
Another industry it can benefit is the hospitality industry, where luxury 5-star hotels can attract customers using kiosks to showcase their rooms in the best light. A kiosk placed in the reception can show which rooms are available, along with pictures, amenities available, and price.
Photocopying and printing tasks can now be automated at shops, where a kiosk can be integrated with the printer for people to use it even without the assistance of the shopkeeper. The person can select the option they want from the menu in the kiosk: whether they want to print, scan or take photocopies, select the number of pages and copies, complete the payment and finally use the printer. The main advantage is that no employee is required to run it and it can function 24×7.
Visualization software can be a powerful tool when run on kiosks to showcase interactive walkthroughs/ 3D demos of products or places. Real estate offices can use these 3D visualization tools running on kiosks at their office receptions or on-site itself at the main office of the building site during the opening week of sales. Real estate agents and brokers can use these kiosks to give the prospective buyers an interactive walkthrough experience of the whole property and the surrounding neighbourhood to give them a better picture of the plot without even leaving the room. Inter-city travels and tourism companies can use kiosks at places where they can act as the tour guides by showcasing 360-degree interactive walkthroughs of the popular attractions in the city. These kiosks can be placed in public transit stations like airports and railway stations, where travelers new to the city can watch the photos and videos playing on the kiosk and browse through the information available to plan their trip accordingly. There will be options to even buy the tour packages right away or book the company’s own taxi from their kiosk itself.
How many clothes can you try on in 5 minutes? A few maybe, but with smart AR-enabled kiosks, you can try on hundreds within the same time. A camera integrated to an interactive kiosk can function as an AR-ready smart device to scan the person’s body and allow them to quickly swap between a variety of outfits and colour options with just the press of a button on the kiosk’s touch screen, especially when none of the trial rooms are free at the moment.
Interior designers, furniture stores and car showrooms can all make use of the same technology with kiosks as the medium to give their customers a visually rewarding experience. Customers waiting in the designer’s lobby can be encouraged to try out their own designs and customize their rooms
To see how they look on the kiosk before committing to the purchase. Similarly, kiosks in showrooms can augment the in-store experience of customers by displaying key features and specifications of the vehicles that can be useful and informative to the viewers.
How many clothes can you try on in 5 minutes? A few maybe, but with smart AR-enabled kiosks, you can try on hundreds within the same time. A camera integrated to an interactive kiosk can function as an AR-ready smart device to scan the person’s body
That allow them to quickly swap between a variety of outfits and color options with just the press of a button on the kiosk’s touch screen, especially when none of the trial rooms are free at the moment.
Clothing and fashion stores can attract more customers, create more demand and sell more units by displaying videos of runway models wearing their favorite clothes
More specifically, kiosks can be a game changer in designer boutiques. Where the pieces of cloth are individually selected and tailored according to the design ideas suggested by the customers themselves. In such cases, the endless customizability options offered in interactive kiosks can really help the customer and tailor get a good feel for how the end product should look like.
Clothing and fashion stores can attract more customers, create more demand and sell more units by displaying videos of runway models wearing their favorite clothes. They can do this using large screen digital signages or kiosks placed near the entrance.
More specifically, kiosks can be a game changer in designer boutiques where the pieces of cloth are individually selected and tailored according to the design ideas suggested by the customers themselves.
In such cases, the endless customizability options offered in interactive kiosks can really help the customer and tailor get a good feel for how the end product should look like. Also make them to try various products interactively and get satisfied that might urge them to buy the Product they like
Optical shops, eye-wear centers and opticians can use digital signages or interactive signages primarily to display the eye chart to conduct vision tests for patients. After that, these signages can also double up as a smart mirror that lets the user try out different styles of spectacles and frames, thanks to the AR camera integration. Apart from this, Jewelry shops and luxury watch boutiques can also use the same concept to boost their business. Pieces of jewellery and high-end watches made with precious metals can cost lakhs of rupees and it may be too risky to exhibit or allow a person to try them on at the store. But despite this, the expensive item of interest can still be shown as an aspirational product in the form of an Kiosk to customers via the AR-enabled smart kiosks
In marketing roles is where our kiosk shines, especially when used in industrial expos, product exhibitions, product launch events, special events and marketing campaigns. In such situations, interactive kiosks placed in a company’s stall in the expo can grab the attentions of huge crowds of people, including the media to showcase the company’s products and technology in an attractive as well as informative way. It will encourage people to just browse through their catalogue, or just view the advertisements when the showcased products or the company’s spokespersons are busy interacting with the crowd.
Elpro Technologies Kiosk India Bangalore is already working on several working technologies to implement in the kiosk use cases mentioned so far. Most notably, we have developed kiosk as a completely in-house visualization solution that we have successfully delivered to a few of our clients, who have already seen results with it. We have already successfully delivered on numerous B2B orders and we’re ready to offer customized kiosk software and hardware solutions to benefit businesses worldwide.
