Friday, October 9, 2009

Touch the screen and see what happens


When you look at the history of touchscreen technology, you will learn that the technology emerged from academic and corporate research labs in the second half of the 1960's. The technology has made significant advances over the last few years and has become ubiquitous with pda's, particularly the Ipod Touch and Iphone. This also means consumers are confident to use this technology across consumer electronics devices.

E2 have recently used touchscreen technology as part of a Virgin Mobile Australia, 50 store roll out. Consumers are given the opportunity to compare and contrast various handsets, features and tariffs from one touchscreen.

There are a few benefits why this technology benefits consumers. More information on screen, minimises paper wastage, easily updatable product content from a central source also ensures product information is fully up to date, without wasting time with design and print costs. Having this interaction with the customer in store also improves the efficiencies of the business to suggest through the touchscreen either alternative products (upsell) or complimentary products (cross sell), offering the customer a better purchasing experience and the business a healthy increase in customer spend.

This interactive technology is the first of it's kind in Australia's retail landscape and will no doubt become an integral hygiene factor to enhance the retail user experience of the future.