Hands Off “We anticipate an increase in kiosks in the grocery industry,” says Jim Weaks, VP self-service coin business unit at Cummins Allison, in Mount Prospect, Ill. He adds that customers select his company’s Money Machine 2 coin counters because of the fexibility of the solution and the highly responsive nature of the sales and support organization. “Grocers like our four procurement options: placement, lease, rental or ownership,” he says. “Each provides an opportunity to increase store revenue without increasing user fees.” Weaks notes that Cummins Allison provides what he calls a “handsfree” operation by managing all coin pickup and processing, thus eliminating the time-consuming task of coin handling. “Since replacing their existing equipment, many of our customers have found their monthly revenues have increased because the machines were available when customers wanted to use them,” he observes. Self-service coin redemption is an efective way to use front-of-store space that has been traditionally underused, according to Weaks, and that can dramatically increase the bottom line. Healthy Profits At Grafton, Wis.-based Frank Mayer and Associates Inc., SVP David Anzia notes, “Because more customers, especially Millennials, are embracing technology in-store, supermarkets are employing kiosks to improve the customer experience through a variety of e-commerce solutions.” His company produces several clientspecifc kiosk solutions, with each program unique to the objectives of the retail store, including transactions, loyalty, product information, ordering, health care and gaming. “Kiosks that have proved popular in supermarkets,” notes Anzia, “are those that improve the shopping experience by allowing shoppers to place orders within store departments, provide product scanning, recipe product locators and loyalty card information.” According to Anzia, a highly popular Mayer program is the SoloHealth (Pursuant Health) Station, a kiosk that allows shoppers to check their blood pressure, BMI (body mass index) and vision, as well as receive an overall health assessment. Ad-
Because more customers, especially Millennials, are embracing technology in-store, supermarkets are employing kiosks to improve the customer experience through a variety of e-commerce solutions.” vertising platforms rm atop the monitorr of ofer targeted opportunities portuni to reach sshoppers when they’re in the store, where the product is available for purchase. “One of our recent kiosk programs was a loyalty kiosk allowing customers to sign up for their rewards card right at the kiosk,” he says. “As a result, the client has reported a dramatic jump in new customer registrations.” Kiosks and interactive displays will continue to grow in supermarkets to cater to increasingly technology-driven consumers and to enable grocers to keep up with other retail sectors, he concludes.
—David Anzia, Frank Mayer and Associates
Welcome to the Future In Bellevue, Wash., Dana Krug, VP of sales — grocery, military and fnancial at Outerwall Inc. says, “We believe the future of retail starts now.” With a focus on optimizing its existing network February 2016 | progressivegrocer.com |
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