As a common alternative to in-store staff, kiosks are quickly changing the economics of retail. As retail stores can often achieve greater ROI with multi-purpose kiosks, the staffing requirements of major retail stores are beginning to dramatically change. With informational kiosks, businesses are able to assign more staff to high priority customer service events, lower their reliance on floor staff, and empower customers to shop independently.

Moves towards self service in retail are likely to trickle down to other service-based industries. As a wider range of major companies experiment with in-store retail self service kiosks, smaller retailers and independent stores are likely to follow. With this comes a distinct shift in the way retail stores operate – staffing commitments are likely to be lowered, resulting in a new dynamic for retail stores and a significantly more lucrative per-customer ROI.

The retail industry is already seeing major shifts towards this model. With Nintendo of Japan’s integration of self service kiosks into their retail gaming outlets, customers are able to shop much more independently than before. With ticket machines taking over public transport, self service payment systems dominating supermarkets and shopping centres, and in-store information kiosks quickly moving into retail, the only question left is how quickly other industries will adapt to the new self service movement.

The smell of success as Protouch takes the retail industry by storm

Protouch this week have shown just why they are the No.1 manufacturer and distributor of touch screen equipment through their successes in the retail industry.

Following the success of the new Xen X5 touch screen kiosk, Protouch has welcomed increasing interest from other retailers wishing to improve their sales, as well as awards for their achievements in touch screen technology.

This week has seen the touch screen technology company announce that IKEA have implemented a suite of Xen X5 kiosks into each of its stores in a bid to get customers to sign up to their IKEA FAMILY loyalty scheme. The 19″ touch screen device will allow customers to sign up to the loyalty scheme in-store, find out about upcoming promotions, sales and events. Currently 18 of the kiosks are in use across six IKEA stores in Belgium, with plans to roll out more kiosks across stores in Europe.

Tom Quarry, managing director of Protouch, said, “We are really excited to be involved in Quants’s kiosk solution for IKEA. It is great to see our kiosks working so well within the project by improving IKEA’s operations and enhancing in-store experience for its customers.”