We are reporting on the implementation of a large-scale project of automation the Nortec company wholesale and retail network — one of the largest russian tire manufacturer for all vehicle types. The customer began installing 34 kiosks in 17 own stores across the country.
Why kiosks?
The changing economic situation, rising rental prices and various specific factors for each retail industry are forcing chain stores to reduce marketplace size, staff, and rebuild business processes. At the same time owners strive for modern sales and marketing technologies, looking for effective tools for their implementation.
Premises cost reduction
Any store wants to demonstrate to the visitor the maximum products range. Currently, there are two methods – traditional, physical placement of all goods and a modern electronic catalog, opened at a kiosk with the payment possibility. The second type is chosen by many offline retailers – Citilink electronic discounter, TechnoPoint trading network and others.
An electronic catalog with payment functionality effectively combines offline and online sales channels at one point. There is an important difference in the process of choosing a product by client himselt on the website and choosing it at a kiosk in a retail store. In the store, the work of the kiosk is complemented by a trained consultant whose task is not only to help choose the right product, but also to sell it in accordance with the network marketing strategy. The employee and kiosk will also effectively support the impulse purchase at place.
If the customer has a high-quality website and our “out of the box” software, a complete solution is implemented in a short time.
The self-service kiosk allows to deploy any customer web-site in the interface. It is no longer necessary to rent large areas for showing large-size goods. For a manufacturer of tires that are designed for heavy trucks and agricultural vehicles this is a key factor.
Now you can leave only the minimum number of tires to demonstrate the material quality, all data on models, type, description are available at the kiosk, and the product itself is in the nearest warehouse.
The solution also allows to quickly and easily increase the physical presence of the business with minimal costs and risks.
Staff cost reduction
Self-service kiosk replaces the cashier, takes over the initial work with the document workflow. In one store you can leave one or two consultants for general questions and assistance in choosing products at the kiosk interface.
Taking into account existing prices for kiosks and software, the most expensive kiosk with support for receiving and dispensing cash costs $7300 and pays for ~10 months in comparison with one employee, the price of which for the retail network is over $9000 per year, taking into account vacations, taxes and other household expenses.
The kiosk is actually a modern cash register, so the maintenance cost does not differ from them. If the store chooses only non-cash kiosks for $1800-2200, they don’t need to handle with cash collection and the payback period is significantly reduced (~3 months).
How Nortek uses kiosks
The best solution for Nortec is kiosks from our partners, with our own software. The customer have plans to reduce the area of network stores by 50-60%, to optimize the amount of personnel and their work functions in order to provide a modern service format.
The kiosk is the basis for the POSHK online store, a wholesale and retail platform for selling Northec tires. A visitor of the retail store can make an order through a kiosk or use it to pay for a previously created order on the site remotely (will need to enter the order ID).
In each store installed two types of kiosks – only for accepting bank cards and with cash recycling support.
A laser printer is attached to each kiosk to print invoices. The participation of employees in the creation of documents for the goods issue on the basis of receipt is excluded.
Therefore, the kiosk completely solves the problem of choosing, paying for goods, as well as printing all the necessary documents for receiving them at the warehouse.
Project outcome
Our company was able to fully realize the Northec vision of what an effective self-service checkout should be like. The implemented “out of the box” software solves all the necessary tasks and fully automates sales and payment process. IIn the near future at the request of the customer we can implement voice control, face analytics, bonus system, demonstration of interactive advertising and much more.