Future of POS Displays – A commentary on the technology and trends.

Nowadays, selling merchandise is no longer simply about closing a transaction; it’s about engaging customers by offering them a more targeted, personalised and streamlined shopping experience.

How can a brick-and-mortar retailer offer customers a better shopping experience? In a nutshell, by providing exactly what they want, when and how they want it.

Since the millennial generation has a significant influence on today’s retail sector, digitisation has started to play a critical role in the overall customer experience. From mobile applications to digital POS displays, advanced technologies represent an important part of in-store digitisation.

Now, let’s take a look at some POS (point of sale) display technologies that promise to change today’s retail landscape.

Contextual Information

Most in-store shoppers look for new-age ways of interaction. They also want speed, efficiency and convenience. By opting for interactive POS displays, you can provide all these along with an informational and entertaining experience for the millennial shopper.

Advanced POS displays, for instance, can be equipped with sensors to detect individuals in proximity. When a customer stands in front of the screen, the display can switch from general promotion images to detailed information on products.

Digital POS displays can also be set up to recognise customer particularities like gender and skin tones so that you can provide content accordingly. Using these features, you’ll be able to showcase more relevant products, such as presenting a man’s bike to male shoppers or displaying products that address a particular skin tone.

The Future of POS Displays.
With new POS display technologies, you can offer your customers a more personalised shopping experience, whilst helping them make more informed buying decisions. In time, this will drive customer engagement and retention rates, with a positive impact on your revenue and profit margins. In fact, personalised customer experiences and increased engagement are among the top reasons why experts expect the retail display market to increase by 16 percent over the next 5 years.

In-Depth Retail Insights

According to recent research, more than 70 percent of purchase decisions are made in-store as a result of visual and emotional stimuli, which have a vast impact on the consumer experience and shopper behaviour.

Since the overall customer experience is viewed as a key competitive differentiator, more than 50 percent of brick-and-mortar retailers are planning on making significant investments into their customer experience strategies by 2018.

One roadblock to enhancing consumer experience is that most retailers lack real insights into the millennial shoppers’ needs and wants, particularly at an individual level. But the good news is that evolving POS display technologies are about to change that. These devices can now collect valuable information, ranging from how long people stand in front of the display to which items generate more interest.

Consequently, digital POS displays offer retailers the opportunity to market exactly to their needs.

In this vein, marketing tactics and POS displays can be fine-tuned to provide a real sensory and personalised experience, which will eventually encourage shoppers to complete a purchase.

All these will not only increase customer engagement and sales opportunities; as more data will be collected, retailers will also be able to come up with better store layouts and gradually reduce inventory volumes to eliminate inefficiencies and unnecessary carrying costs.

Mobility Takes Retail to the Next Level

When it comes to mobility, the first challenge is to find a winning combination of “smart” technologies that can help brick-and-mortar retailers develop a flexible yet consistent technology ecosystem.

Pioneering retailers have already opted for different solutions that represent a continuation of the “tools” (e.g. QR codes) customers use to access product information from their mobile devices. As an example, Tesco has recently tested a prototype of an endless aisle, which allows shoppers to browse the merchandise from a screen and purchase products without having to walk around the store.

Some retailers also have combined digital POS displays with mobile clienteling applications to bring a whole new level of personalisation to the customer’s shopping journey.

Since retailers can use these applications to collect accurate data relating to preferences, responses to certain marketing tactics and customer service history, they can create product, brand and behavioural clusters to provide a more targeted retail experience and make the most of predictive marketing by strengthening loyalty at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Omni-Channel Shopping Experiences

Providing a seamless shopping experience across multiple channels is another critical trend across the retail industry. With digital POS displays, retailers can deliver in-store experiences and strategic messages that are consistent with their online and offline marketing tactics.

This means that brick-and-mortar shops can now offer a more coherent, fully integrated shopping experience across the multiple touch points that consumers encounter on their purchase journeys.

A brick-and-mortar retailer that’s active both online and offline, and finds a way to perfectly integrate online with in-store shopping mediums will be able not only to interact with millennial shoppers in a 360-degree way but also to build a strong, engaging social media presence that, in turn, will drive in-store sales.

But all these won’t be possible without the right solution partner. To find out how we can help you leverage digital POS displays to bring your products to life, increase customer engagement and improve store operations, feel free to contact our experienced professionals at DisplayMode today.