As personalized loyalty offers and endless aisle inventory applications migrate from the web into brick and mortar, more retailers are incorporating self-service kiosks to automate these functions in their stores. According to the new report “Retail Horizons: Benchmarks for 2009, Forecasts for 2010,” released by NRF Foundation and KPMG LLP, 32% of retailers have prioritized self-service kiosk 
deployments as a priority over the next 18 months.
Key drivers of this increased adoption of self-assisted shopping devices, according to the eighth annual Retail Horizons report, are retailers becoming more focused on customer retention rather than customer acquisition, as well as a continued drive for operating efficiency. “Last year, retailers placed a significant amount of energy into improving core business processes in order to better prepare themselves for a successful future,” said Kathy Mance, Executive Director, NRF Foundation. “Looking ahead, retailers will continue to analyze customer shopping habits and industry trends to make the best decision possible for their company, employees, customers and their brand.”
Following high profile kiosk deployments at Tier 1 retailers such as Wal-Mart and Kohl’s, industry insiders said the self-serve trend is working its way into Tier 2 and 3 retailers.
To support this growing demand, hardware manufacturers have expanded their offerings of turnkey, all-in-one kiosk solutions. For example, Zebra is reporting significant growth of their Kiosk Print Station. The hardware kiosk solution accommodates Zebra’s rugged TTP 2000 series kiosk printer, a roll of media and a compact kiosk computer to form a complete, affordable (listing for around $1,100) and easy-to-deploy alternative to custom kiosks that can often waste floor space and create headaches for the IT and store ops teams.
Illustrating the increased adoption, Bill Phelps, Industry Development Manager for Retail at Zebra Technologies, said he is seeing “more than half of the company’s kiosk deployments in the retail vertical.” He pointed to department stores, mass merchants, consumer electronics and grocery as the fastest growth sectors. “Most consumers have already started the research process online before they come in to the store,” Phelps said. “They now expect the ability to do tasks like printing coupons, price checks, item locators and inventory availability while they are in the store.”
Because self-service check out has become so prevalent in grocery, Phelps said he has seen a surge in other self-serve options. “We’ve seen up to 12 different applications with supermarkets—from the deli counter to price checkers to item locators to check in stations where customers can print targeted coupons or loyalty offers.”
According to the 11th annual POS Benchmarking Survey, conducted by Boston Retail Partners, of the kiosks installed today, 30% are utilizing them to offer company gift cards, loyalty program information, and product information. However, the survey found retailers are planning to expand the applications available, with more than 63% intending to add both access to their company website and the ability to search for inventory at other store locations or distribution centers.
The Zebra Print Station integrates with popular new self-serve solutions, such as the IBM Anyplace series, the Motorola MK 4000
Micro Kiosk.
The IBM Anyplace is compact to fit anywhere within a retail store. The units are available with a 19" flat panel touch screen display with high resolution, as well as a 15". The Anyplace kiosks also integrate with IBM’s AnyPlace POS Hub, offering point of sale capability at any area of the store.
Motorola’s MK 4000 micro kiosk combines Motorola’s bar code scanning technology, a 12.1” SVGA touchscreen with a cost-effective connection to back-end systems and three USB ports for customization. In addition to adding value to customer touch points, Motorola has also positioned the micro kiosk as an internal operations resource to support task management and training initiatives.
A recent Motorola survey found that of the 1 in 5 holiday shoppers who shopped in a store with a self-service price checker/kiosk, nearly one-half used the kiosk and 86% of those eventually purchased the checked item.
Motorola also offers the more compact MK500, designed to run in-store, self-service applications such as price check, gift card balance look-up and loyalty card point balance data.
