In the age of Amazon.com, physical stores have to compete more than ever to provide customers with a shopping experience that rivals the ease and convenience of online shopping. The use of interactive digital displays are helping to provide customers with an immersive experience that engages multiple senses, something that’s impossible to replicate on the web. But how and where in-store to best capture the hearts and minds of your shoppers? In this piece, created in partnership with iQ by Intel, PSFK takes a journey around a hypothetical store to point out where a retailer could use digital displays to augment the current experience.

Window Displays: Converting Passersby Into Shoppers

Street displays have always been an important part of the retail environment, providing the first opportunity to show shoppers what they can find in the store. Now, with the use of digital displays, stores can capture passerby attention in more creative ways that really show off the product. Many retailers are creating interactive experiences that give customers extra incentive to come inside, like the LEGO Store display in Chicago. The giant display uses a Kinect to turn anyone standing outside into a video game character they control with their body movements.

By turning the window display into a free game, LEGO positions its store as more of an extension of its brand’s values rather than a place for monetary exchange. Reinforced as a ‘fun place’ rather than just a store, people will be more likely to go inside. Beyond simply providing ‘fun’ experiences, stores are also using window displays as another conversion point. Bloomingdales experimented with letting passersby virtually ‘try on’ sunglasses in store windows and BMW has used digital windows in a showroom to transform ordinary cars on the street into cars of the future.

Store Walls: Transforming Static Walls Into Dynamic Information Hubs

After getting shoppers in, interactive ‘walls’ of products stand bright to greet them. Here people can access everything there is to know about what’s on display, and even see things that might not be in stock. For example, the adiVERSE Footwear Wall, powered by Intel technology, allows shoppers to see up to 8,000 shoe styles in 3D through touchscreens so they can find the one just right for them.

Raj Maini, Intel’s Worldwide Director of Marketing for Visual Retailing, speaks about the adiVerse Footwear Wall and how it meets both brand and consumer goals. To quote Maini, the wall brings the huge amount of information usually available on the Internet into the physical retail store, transforming each product into an access point into the brand’s universe that the customer can explore. This serves the consumer’s sense of value and time, and it helps the brand by allowing customers to browse all items, not just what’s physically in-store. It contributes to a seamless, easy buying experience (sometimes with discounts and incentives) that comfortably moves the customer along the purchasing path. It seems to have worked; Mr Maini confirms that Adidas saw same-store sales increase 500% after installing the interactive wall.

Via PFSK