Until recently, if a shopper needed a certain sized article of clothing or specific piece of furniture that was out of stock in a retailer’s store, they had to order it the old fashioned way — a sales associate would call the order in and contact the customer once it arrived. In the case of French retailer Orchestra, this process resulted in a high level of lost sales, since many customers would leave the store empty-handed and shop elsewhere for the item. But thanks to interactive retail technologies and the wave of “endless aisle” kiosk applications, those days are quickly fading into oblivion.
Orchestra recently tapped the technology providers at IntuiLab to create an interactive application now deployed in five stores in France and planned for a future rollout to all locations in the country. In addition to in-store product ordering, the kiosk also encourages customers to discover Orchestra product collections and special offers, creating the endless aisle experience.
Although anyone can interact with the application to check inventory availability and browse sales and products, only Club Orchestra members can use the kiosk to make purchases, incentivizing new customers to join the retailer’s loyalty program. The special offers and product catalogues section of the application mirrors Orchestra’s website. Information is accessed via web services exposed by Orchestra’s IT back office and is adapted to fit the layout and design of the kiosk-based app.
