By John Hennessy, Vice President, Concept Shopping, Inc.
(www.conceptshopping.com)
WineMiner LLC, a provider of internet-based kiosks for researching wine and complementary food recipes, has deployed kiosks in two Fausto's Food Palace locations in Key West, FL.
The kiosks contain information on wine, cheeses and complementary recipes. The content is customized for each retail customer to reflect the store's inventory. There are also plans to add a store locator feature to support the purchase of food and wine pairings.
Moderator's Comment: What other areas can be well-served by information kiosks?
It's a brief technology-driven piece on an information kiosk. But if you read between the lines, there's a lot more that should appeal to marketers.
New technologies, complex products, emerging segments like organics, categories needing some revitalizing like produce, new products or new product classifications all require education to be successful. If you don't know which natural remedy will cure your headache, how to convert your CDs to mp3s or which produce items are teeming with calcium, you will be less likely to make a purchase.
Store staff cannot be everywhere and cannot know everything. A well-executed kiosk program can get pretty close. When you need to know which wine to serve, you can confidently discover the answer and make the purchase with equal confidence. When you want to know what a "nano" is as you seek a camera for your graduating nephew, you can find out.
Educational kiosks like the WineMiner's play to shopper's familiarity with technology and their quest for information. Their use is also consistent with the widespread practice of Googling to find out more about a new topic.
Often it's more convenient for a shopper to seek information on their own time. There is also reluctance on the part of some shoppers to demonstrate ignorance of a topic by seeking guidance from a human. "Directions sir?" - John Hennessy - Moderator