How Digital Signage helps hypermarkets regain competitiveness in 2024
Modernizing hypermarkets with Digital Signage - a new offline shopping experience focused on customer convenience.
Saving customer time
When a person enters a grocery store, they usually know what they want to buy. Everyone has, in one way or another, their own “wishlist” of products and brands they are used to.
Customer time can be saved by organizing orders similar to what exists in fast-food restaurants. For example, installing interactive product catalogs at the entrance, powered by digital screen software, where one can place and pay for an order. After some time, the prepared set of products can be collected from a locker using a code indicated on the receipt. This way, the consumer doesn’t even need to enter the sales floor, search for items on shelves, weigh them, etc. The time spent waiting for the order can be used more pleasantly: browsing other stores, visiting a beauty salon, or sitting in a café.
Creating a show for customers and advertising for manufacturers
Unlike choosing clothes or exploring new gadgets, grocery shopping seems like a boring routine that one wants to complete with minimal “engagement.” However, this process can be made interesting and exciting.
For example, organizing live cooking masterclasses using a digital screen player, while simultaneously advertising the products needed to prepare a particular dish at home. Alternatively, well-known chefs or celebrities could be invited, with the broadcasts taking place at different points in the hypermarket through digital ads.
The effect of such an event is obvious. On one hand, it will be interesting and useful for the consumer: they can not only learn new recipes but also get a list of ingredients they need to buy. On the other hand, such an event will increase sales for the manufacturer and product category, as well as provide the hypermarket with additional advertising revenue.
Such broadcasts should be organized in several locations simultaneously. First, large diagonal panels or video walls should be installed in various points of the sales floor, powered by digital screen software, to attract the existing shoppers in the supermarket and promote a particular product. By the way, additional monitors can be installed directly on the shelves and synchronized with the content of the masterclass. For instance, when a specific product is mentioned, an arrow will light up on the corresponding shelf, pointing to the item.
Another place for monitor installation for broadcasts is the entrance area, where the display is oriented towards passersby. This will help attract additional traffic to the hypermarket. LED panels on the building facade can also be used for digital advertising to serve the same purpose.
Simplifying the selection process for customers
Another possible solution that simplifies the choice for the customer and provides additional income for manufacturers and retailers is interactive kiosks offering “ready-made recipe kits.” Some online stores are already using this principle. However, with the help of a Digital Signage system, this practice can be implemented in offline shopping as well. The advantage over online ordering will be the ability to receive the ordered set “on the spot.” Thus, the customer doesn’t need to plan their menu in advance, for example, for a week. After work, they can simply visit the hypermarket and choose dinner based on their mood.
Engaging customer interest
Today’s consumers, especially the younger generation, want to know what they are consuming—where the products were grown, where they were produced, ingredients, and the presence of “chemicals.” Small interactive monitors can help provide all this information, displaying product details, preparation recommendations, and interesting facts (such as health benefits or the daily value of vitamins) when the barcode is scanned. Besides informing, this solution adds a game-like element for the customer, making shopping in the hypermarket less routine. Naturally, this will also be perceived as a display of loyalty and transparency from the retailer to the customer.
Organizing a children’s room
If grocery shopping is boring even for adults, what can be said about children? Waiting in line in front of shelves, standing at the checkout, “cart traffic jams”—all of this makes visiting a hypermarket with children not very convenient or pleasant for parents.
In this situation, it makes sense to follow the example of many shopping centers by organizing a special zone where parents can leave their children and go shopping. In the children’s room, several panels can be installed to show cartoons, gaming monitors, interactive projections, and more. To conveniently manage Digital Signage in such rooms, a digital signage system can be used to ensure high-quality and efficient content display. To ease parents’ concerns, a video stream from the children’s room to digital surfaces in the sales area can be organized, with periodic “live broadcasts.”
Simplifying navigation in hypermarkets and store departments
Difficulty in finding the right product is another negative factor from the customer’s perspective. Navigation in the form of banners under the ceiling doesn’t always improve the situation. After all, besides finding the necessary department, one still needs to locate specific products within it. A solution to this problem could be installing an interactive map of the hypermarket at the entrance and category searches on small monitors in each department. Moreover, replacing regular banners in the sales area with digital advertising screens would also have a positive effect: they are more noticeable and easier to perceive.
Implementing modern and economical technologies: electronic price tags
Another aspect where the use of Digital Signage can bring significant savings and quality improvements to the hypermarket is electronic price tags. They are now being actively implemented in various retail sectors. However, in hypermarkets, with their vast assortment and dynamic price changes, they are particularly relevant. First, it saves a huge amount of time and effort for staff, who won’t need to manually rewrite prices on products. Second, it minimizes situations where the price at checkout is higher than that shown on the price tag because the price wasn’t updated in time. As a result, there are fewer dissatisfied customers, and loyalty increases.
Of course, digital signage software is not a panacea capable of completely changing the “balance of power” in the market. However, as a powerful tool for interacting with consumers, DS can help hypermarkets modernize the existing format, adapting it to changing consumer preferences (one of the main demands being time savings). There is a whole arsenal of solutions for this, including software for screens that allows for easy content management and adaptation to current needs.
Advision — Content Management System for remote management and media planning of video and audio content broadcasting. We help offline businesses and advertising companies automate their workflows and implement a robust Digital Signage infrastructure using our proprietary software and hardware solutions.
Contact us, and we will help you implement the most modern technologies to solve your problems!
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