iPad kiosks enhance the in-store experience

Touchscreen kiosks

The iPad has proven to a smash-hit new device for a variety of consumer applications; web browsing, book reading, video watching, email checking, game playing…but what about shopping?

Retailer-specific apps

iPad apps are not generally focused on shopping experiences. Does shopping at home via an iPad app offer a significantly better experience that shopping via a web browser?  Do shopping apps drive higher sales?

Except for broadly adopted portals like Zappos, eBay, and Amazon, it’s unlikely that consumers will download retailer-specific shopping apps.  Would you download a JCrew app next time you want to buy some new socks?  Time will tell.

Aggregators and APIs

Shopping iPad apps that aggregate a variety of brands are showing potential.  Shopstyle has been successful in driving millions in sales for various well-known brands like Nordstrom, Pottery Barn and Sephora.

iPad Kiosks

For commerce, a viable real near-term opportunity for the iPad may be to empower consumers in the retail store itself.   Things Remembered, for example, is a personalized gift store that uses iPad kiosks in-store to allow customers to design a huge assortment of gifts.   Categories include weddings, housewarming, and even ‘new job’.

Ziosk

In the restaurant chain business, Ziosk from Tabletop Media has created convenient, dining-specific touchscreen kiosks that speed up the payment cycle.   Ziosk puts a tablet device on each table.  The self-ordering and self-check out experience increases overall convenience and frees up tables faster.

Ziosk-ready restaurants are reporting impressive numbers. Promoted menu item sales are up as much as 100% in some chains and up to a 50% increase on dessert sales because of the interactive menus and ability to custom-order your own dessert. The restaurant e-mail club has a 300% adoption increase when using the Ziosk system.

At the Delta Airlines terminal at JFK airport (soon to be La Guardia as well) the installed iPads for pre-flight entertainment to check e-mail, read the news and even to order food before their flight.

A higher level of in store convenience

What do all these examples have in common?  An in-store, touchscreen kiosk puts more power in the hands of the consumer.   These intuitive, fun, self-service systems give consumers new interactive tools that provide a higher level of customer satisfaction, which in turn leads to increased engagement and higher sales.