Retailers showing all the signs

Opportunities are still expanding to sell screens and digital signage to retailers, finds Fleur Doidge

More retailers appear to be getting interested in maximising sales through digital signage and screen technology - providing opportunities for the channel.

Warren Lewis, sales director for LG Business Solutions, says retailers are beginning to realise that consumers now expect a more interactive experience.

"With the spread of touch-screen phones and tablets, many people have become used to using touch screens every day. Interaction with visual media has become second nature to many," Lewis says.

He says retailers are getting more sophisticated in the way they wish to use digital signage and screen technology as well. Dynamic, bespoke content, updated more regularly, is becoming de rigeuer.

"Many retailers used to just replay their television adverts or corporate videos on digital signage, which in many cases was not appropriate for the retail environment," Lewis says.

Lewis points to the LG-sponsored Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI)'s 2010 UK Digital Signage Survey of 100 major retailers, brand owners, shopping centres and screen network operators. It found that the number of indoor digital signage screens leapt 28 per cent to 131,560 since 2007. However, just 10 per cent of retailers so far are using the technology.

Nick Gale, chief executive at signage agency Realisation and head of digital for POPAI, says that respondents totalled some 111 indoor digital signage networks or 47,000 retail outlets - and that most see the installations as directly enhancing sales.

Fifty-eight per cent update the content weekly, and 40 per cent update content at least daily. Some 57.5 per cent receive their content via the internet, satellite or 3G.

"There are an average three screens per site," Gale says. "Forty per cent said that the major benefit was sales uplift. Just six per cent indicated that the screens did not benefit sales uplift. [And] retailers with screens in 2007 have increased their number of screens since then."

Twenty-two-point-four per cent of the retail professionals whose outlets do not yet have digital signage screens say they may deploy the technology, and 34.1 per cent that do have it say they intend to add more screens within 12 months. Another 9.4 per cent that used screens intend to keep using them.

Some 29.4 per cent of those surveyed say they are not sure whether to deploy digital signage screens. Just 3.5 per cent say they don't use them and do not plan to, with 1.6 per cent saying they want to remove theirs.

Phil Day, business manager of Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI) UK and Ireland, says the survey, which is the seventh of its kind, is unparalleled in terms of the depth of the information it covers. Unfortunately, there is no data yet on how retailers prefer to buy digital signage - whether from IT resellers as part of a package, or from audiovisual specialists, for example.

"It is difficult to give an overarching view of all retail, but over the past couple of years, we have seen costs become a major issue in the supply chain," Day said. "And screens have a much longer life-span than something made of cardboard."
C2000 ups consumer ante>> www.channelweb.co.uk/1889761