Home Depot, McDonald’s Pushing Non-Traditional Kiosk Trials
Written by Evan SchumanOctober 14th, 2008
Home Depot and McDonald's are both in the middle of non-traditional kiosk trials. McDonald's is on its fourth such trial, after having concluded that the first three simply didn't work well. Not too many retailers would opt for a fourth trial after three unsuccessful attempts.
The non-traditional Home Depot kiosk trial is based more on the units themselves—small mobile units, some as tiny as 5-inches tall—and the size of the chain's planned kiosk commitment: Well north of $100 million for full deployment, according to the technology consultant handling one of the trials.
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3 Comments | Read Home Depot, McDonald’s Pushing Non-Traditional Kiosk Trials
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-Christine
October 16th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I firmly believe that to have kiosks work effectively, companies need very clean and accurate data. Most retailers are challenged in this way, and I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear at least one big “ooops†from each retailer that tries to roll out kiosks. Sort of like when I was with a dotcom in the late 90’s and our product team put the sku for an IBM server in for a Palm Pilot cover, so when someone purchased a leather Palm Pilot cover for $12 bucks or so, they’d get a server instead.
Since most retailers are still getting very bad data from their suppliers, they either need to have a great product data quality solution or expect some really interesting results from kiosk orders…
October 20th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Effective retail kiosks should connect effectively with the POS system,so that to the POS software they appear as another lane. However the kiosk interface should be entirely different from a POS interface. It’s interesting that MacDonald’s have now tested and proved this.
It’s true that data in the POS generally needs some improvement for use on the kiosks. Generally the improvements are in better product descriptions and photos, rather than product skus, which are already in use on the POS.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:07 am
Editor’s Note: Good point, Cath Sample, but I would make a very nitpick. To the best of our knowledge, McDonald’s has yet to have “proved this.” The trial is under way but hasn’t yet delivered final results. They may indeed prove it, but we’re not aware that it has happened yet.