NRF show - Interesting Items

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Originally uploaded by Tim Burke Kiosk Guy

I attended the NRF show (National Retail Federation - NRF.com) in New York last week at the Javitz center to see what was new and interesting in the Retail world. It was predominately point of sale hardware and related services, and only partially about retail experience, and customer self service (which is my main interests). While attendance seemed a bit down at the show, exhibitors told me that at least the quality of leads they had were still good.

One interesting thing I saw was from our partner at Zebra Printers. We've integrated Zebra printers into many kiosks, and they are widely used in Retail and industry. Now they have a new off the shelf kiosk print station that incorporates a thermal receipt printer with a mount to hold an all-in-one kiosk such as the IBM Anyplace you see in the photo. This is a great product that should catch on quickly. It allows firms like ours to sell a common solution (kiosk and printer) at a low cost and pre-engineered solution. It can mount to a wall, pole mount, or table top mount as seen here. Although our contact tells us the table top was done just for the show and not part of the solution, I'm sure it could be acquired if desired. It could also have custom graphics applied to it for an extra branding opportunity, but comes in standard retail grey standard. I give this product two thumbs up and we plan to start offering it to our customers.

Another interesting solution I saw at NRF was the "Scent Air" booth. They bring the nose into the overall kiosk experience. Or any retail experience for that matter. The majority of their customers are retailers who inject a scent into their retail space. But here they were showing a unique way of integrating it into an interactive experience. As part of their booth, they have a VW bus and touch screens built into the side of it. You can choose which sent you want to smell, and it blows a burst of that scent out a pair of holes on either side of the screen. It was really dead on, chocolate, lavender, cookies, there were up to 1500 different aromas available. In the back window of the bus you could see the apparatus that held the scent canisters and delivered it to the vents. Really great booth concept, and makes you think of lots of ways to incorporate the sense of smell into your retail experience. This could make an up sell much easier to the consumer, and shows that the experience at kiosks or digital signage can be much bigger than the touch, audio or sense of vision.

Provision had their 3D kiosks at the show again. We first saw these last year at KioskCom and they are pretty cool. This year they have incorporated the ability to touch the hologram and click it to interact. The technology is still in its infancy but they should have a revision out by the time of this posting. http://www.provision3dmedia.com/ The example at the show gave you different products to view in 3D, and when you touched one it would print out a coupon for that particular product. The folks at Bank of America are interested in this technology. I assume because one great way to use it could be through the front window of a retailer. Imagine standing outside of a closed retail shop and interacting with a hologram projected through the glass, enabling you to browse the store catalog. Fun and engaging!

The good folks at Comm-Works had a fun virtual experience at their booth. You could put on a virtual 3D face mask and drive a fun race car video game. The whole time you are sitting in a real race car seat with steering wheel, brake and gas pedals. I wrecked that car a few times before I could get the hang of it, but imagine a branded experience such as the Tide race car and brand placement along the race track.

If you attended the NRF show, what other fun and interesting items caught your eye? Add your comments below.