Kiosks - Retail And Other Applications

RETAIL AND OTHER APPLICATIONS

Retailers with in-store kiosks included Bloomingdale's, where kiosks gave shoppers information on hot-selling items and prompted them to buy. The kiosks also displayed and sold catalog items. For the 2000 holiday shopping season, Bloomingdale's added second-generation software that enabled the company to produce its own editorial content and promote special events through live chats and other multimedia presentations. Bloomingdale's kiosks also had an e-mail feature that allowed customers to send e-mail postcards to their friends and attach digital photos of children with Santa Claus taken at the store. The kiosks also included store maps and could be customized for a particular location. Bloomingdale's considered its "eOsks" as empowering the consumer by providing them with convenience and expediency.

At the end of 2000 BlueLight.com, Kmart's e-commerce subsidiary, planned to roll out 3,500 Internet-enabled kiosks at about half of the 2,100 Kmart and Super K stores nationally. Customers in Kmart stores would be able to shop online at BlueLight.com and make payments either through a credit card, an alternative payment solution tied to their checking account, or by using a Kmart cash card. The in-store kiosks were located at customer service desks. They were intended to initiate consumers to the Internet. In addition, BlueLight.com passed out CDs that would provide customers with free Internet access. The kiosks represented a way for BlueLight.com to attract new customers as well as a new channel for Kmart to boost revenue. Orders received online and via kiosks were outsourced to SubmitOrder.com for fulfillment. Five months after the 3,500 BlueLight.com kiosks were installed in Kmart stores, the company reported that 20 percent of all BlueLight.com shoppers came from inside Kmart stores.

Kiosks were installed in 91 Store of Knowledge stores by publisher Dorling Kindersley in 2000. The Store of Knowledge retail chain sells educational toys, games, and books. Its kiosks enabled users to search for gifts according to the recipient's age and by type of merchandise. Users could also order gifts online, specify gift wrapping, and then pick up the gifts at a nearby store.

At the end of 2000, Service Merchandise, a discount jewelry and houseware retailer, was installing kiosks in its 220 stores as part of the firm's makeover following its reorganization. The kiosks were designed with the capability of printing coupons for consumers.

At Borders Books & Music, kiosks provide access to some 3 million items, while an individual Borders store could only carry some 200,000 items at a time. The kiosks featured a "Title Sleuth" that found books by title as well as store maps showing where a particular book was shelved. Similar kiosks at rival Barnes & Noble succeeded in driving traffic to Barnesandnoble.com, helping to push the Web site's book sales past those of Amazon.com in the first quarter of 2001.

By February 2001 office products retailer Staples had installed Web kiosks in all of its 954 stores. Staples' in-store kiosks provided customers with access to some 45,000 products listed at Staples.com, compared to 7,500 items carried in a typical store. The kiosks also provided customers with access to 10,000 downloadable software titles and a range of business services. Online purchases made through the kiosks could be paid for by cash, check, or credit card at the stores' registers.

Other retail chains with in-store kiosks included RadioShack, where Web-enabled kiosks provided sales staff and customers with a way to look up products, including many that were not in stock at the store. General Nutrition Center stores had small kiosks that provided information on food supplements.

Kiosks were also being deployed in banks and other financial institutions in 2001. Bank One Corp. installed two types of kiosks at different branches throughout the country. One type of kiosk, made by WingspanBank.com, was intended to attract new customers to Bank One's new Internet-only bank. The other bankone.com kiosks offered customers access to bankone.com 's financial services, including online banking, bill payment, investing, and small business and commercial services.

Gas stations and convenience stores were emerging avenues for kiosks as well. The December 2000 NACS (National Association of Convenience Stores) convention featured a wide range of Internet kiosks. NCR displayed several Internet kiosk systems with different application development partners.