Are interactive terminals, the future of retail stores?
29th of May, 2020
According to the French magazine Le Monde, in 2019, online purchases exceeded 100 billion euros and the number of online buyers increased by more than 23% in a year, only in France. With more than a third of the world’s population in lockdown, the rate of online purchases for the next few years is likely to increase at the expense of brick and mortar stores.
How to make customers want to come to the store again despite the rules of social distancing?
According to a Zebra Technologies study dated from end of 2018, 42% of retail stores associates said they were frustrated by their incapacity to meet clients’ needs due to a too important pressure to succeed other tasks. Moreover, 83% of point-of-sales managers and 74% of associates estimate that being equipped with digital terminals might be useful for them and improve as well the customer journey.
With the Covid 19 crisis, in some stores it is now, for hygienic reasons, forbidden to try clothes on. However, as a clothes brand, we might wonder what is the point for a client to come to our store if he can’t try its clothes on? The best could be to stay at home and buy online… It is to face this way of thinking that interactive terminals are setting up. Thanks to those, a customer could continue to come to the store, have the possibility to try its clothes on virtually and avoid the contamination at the same time. Regarding the seller, he will be able to help, advise and keep a real social link with its client. Moreover, on those terminals, the client could havedirect access to the stock of the product is looking for. This will increase its purchasing experience and put less pressure on the seller who will continue to advise other potential buyers.
In the world, it already exists some stores that provides the possibility for customers to virtually try clothes and articles without going to the fitting rooms. It is done thanks to a tablet or an interactive terminal available within the store. The customer choose a product and thanks to the camera inside the terminal, he can see himself wearing its article. In addition to stores, touch terminals could be helpful in many public spaces such as cinemas, theaters or museums to book tickets or see the next screenings. It might also be useful in libraries, to check the availability of a book and rent it for example. What about the catering? Digital terminals, such as tablets, could be seen as useful. Indeed, a customer will be able to see the menu and order instantly on the screen, without waiting for too long.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic that had a huge impact on our world, it is necessary to reconsider the future of our stores. In this article, we are not talking about replacing humans by robots and deleting social contact but precisely to help in store sales thanks to those digital tools. To set up those terminals, it will be necessary to use mobile device management solutions to secure them. They allow a simple and quick access to one or a small set of applications, previously chosen by the company itself and the kiosk mode is the most adapted to those digital screens. Indeed, MDM softwares enable, in particular for point-of-sales, remotely secure and manage different terminals.
TinyMDM is the first French software for professional mobile device management specialized in Android and Android EMM partner. Its aim is to offer an easy-to-use and affordable mobile device management solution regarding the human and financial investment. TinyMDM offers three different management solutions: the Work profile or BYOD(Bring Your Own Device), the Fully managed and the Kiosk mode. The last one is the most adapted to the current and future needs of retail stores because it contains the possibility for a company to choose the applications that will be used in the stores (private apps and public apps) and to hide inappropriate applications but also the possibility to customize the screen or to set a sleep mode delay for example.
