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According to a recent report, all high street stores will transform into hi-tech, high touch ‘experience’ centres in 2012.
Predicted findings by Manhattan Associates, a global solutions provider for supply chain leaders, reveal that many retailers are set to change to meet the demand of a multichannel world.
The industry experts foretold that more products will be sold online and that items sold in-store will focus on a narrower more personalised range. But the corporation envisages that more retailers will look to make their high street presence more experiential to cater to the evolving needs and tastes of shopper.
The company also believes that self-checkouts and sales assistants armed with mobile devices will renovate the way customers interact with sales staff.
A recent example which confirms the forecast is a store in Paris which opened an interactive lab where consumers could test out the kitchen equipment in-store before ordering online.
But the report states that retailers need to be prepared for customers to buy through a variety of channels and to offer them an array of shopping experiences for them to research, buy and collect wherever they want.
Craig Sears- Black, UK managing director of Manhattan Associates, said that 2012 will be a challenging year for the retail industry but that at the same time, the opportunities for retailers to serve consumers better will be greater than ever because of new technologies.
Protouch touch screen software can help any retail business meet the growing needs of consumers.
Just have a look and see how our touch screen kiosks aided leading clothing and homeware retailer, Matalan.
Matalan, the leading clothing and homeware retailer, has picked our self-service Xen X4 EPoS kiosks to use in its’ new pilot multi-channel retailing in-store.
The pilot is being deployed in Matalan’s new High Wycombe store and will provide an additional means for customers to purchase products and services across the entire Matalan range.
They were looking to provide in-store access to their entire product range including the extended lines that can only be found online.
By incorporating our transactional kiosks they are able to display products that cannot currently be found in-store. In turn the kiosks also accommodate customers without internet access and enhance the shopping experience of customers who come to the store.
As a result, it will allow Matalan to drive incremental revenues in-store by increasing average basket size and cross/up selling.
Ross Williams, Ecommerce Trading Manager, said: “We are always looking to improve our customer’s shopping experience, by giving in store shoppers the option to buy from our online range, they benefit by getting new products sooner, and also by being able to select from our full range.
“We recognise a shift in our customers shopping behaviour, and are looking to use technology to service customer requirements however they wish to engage with us.”
We are providing the total solution; hardware, software and a managed service with support and maintenance.
The Xen X4 kiosks feature a keyboard and 80mm receipt printers running a secure browser version of their website. Customers simply browse the website as they would at home then add their desired items to basket and proceed to check out where they can pay and arrange in-store collection or delivery.
The kiosks were launched at the store opening yesterday, on November 18th.
Protouch are the UK’s leading supplier of touch screen and kiosk systems and winner of Retail Systems Awards in 2008, 2009, 2010.
Visit us at www.protouch.co.uk.
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