ISS (Infinity Shopping Shelf)
The idea of the e-commerce Infinity Shopping Shelf is that you can offer an unlimited number of products or services because you aren’t held back by the physical shelf space in a brick-and-mortar store. This is particularly relevant in a marketplace model where operators can offer products from third-party merchants to extend their product offering.
What does Infinity Shopping Shelf mean?
Online shopping has changed consumers’ habits and expectations for good. People are used to having an extensive choice of products, readily available product information, and an easy shopping process. These new developments have created increasing pressure on brick-and-mortar retailers that cannot easily keep up with such expectations.
Innovative digital technologies at Point of Sale (PoS) are coming to infuse a new air of dynamism in shopping. Digital technologies are merging the online and offline experiences with advantages for retailers and customers alike. Virtual mobile assistants, digital signage, and Infinity Shopping Shelves (ISS) are revolutionizing the customers’ store experiences.
Infinity Shopping Shelves (also sometimes called Virtual Shopping Shelves) are purely digital shelves that interact with the customers and present them with products and information. Why are they referred to as infinity shelves? Infinity implies that this innovative technology lets a vendor offer an assortment without any borders or limitations of space. Vendors can optimize their stores and dramatically increase the number of products offered because the customer does not see the product physically.
Infinity Shopping Shelves take the functionalities of digital signage to a new level. In digital signage, customers already enjoy a multimedia experience with products and brands through screens. Some applications of digital signage include some interactivity with costumers and personalization through the recognition of biometrical characteristics of passing by people.
Infinity Shopping Shelves take the functionalities of digital signage to a new level.
Infinity Shopping Shelves take these characteristics and add the technology necessary to support the entire customer journey. For example, infinity shopping shelves offer additional functionalities like printing coupons, direct payment possibilities, customer reviews, or additional product content. ISS also supports remote campaign management and the possibility to change content in real time.
According to a survey performed by the German Funding Initiative from the Economy Ministry, Mittelstand 4.0 Agentur Handel, this percentage of people expressed having the following expectations on virtual shelves:
- 90% detailed product photos
- 80% the possibility of placing orders
- 79% smart filtering functionalities
- 78% printing
- 78% videos from products
- 78% independent product reviews
- 70% alternative product recommendations
Advantages of ISS for vendors
- Vendors can significantly increase their product assortment without incurring the costs of needing bigger stores. Customers will find the products over the Infinity Shopping Shelves and can directly add them to their shopping cart and pay.
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Infinity Shopping Shelves offer flexible design in the presentation of products. ISS technology has customizable dynamic templates to play with the product’s size and ways of highlighting important information. Vendors can easily experiment with ways to make their offers more attractive.
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Vendors can innovate how they present products and marketing campaigns by including audio, animations, and videos. This multimedia experience helps create eye-catching promotional content and, ultimately, greater customer emotional engagement.
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Infinity Shopping Shelves also promise to be a valuable road to reduce costs in personnel while giving customers a comprehensive customer experience.
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This technology also enables vendors to react quickly to changes in the market. Vendors can easily modify changes in prices and availability in the system.
Advantages of ISS for Customers
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Detailed product information
ISS technology can provide product information and exciting details in a small space. Customers can quickly receive detailed information on products of interest directly from the screen without the need to find an employee in a store.
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Expanded product selection
Customers can enjoy a more extensive palette of products without the need to visit several stores. ISS will usually directly offer a convenient delivery method if the products are unavailable in the local store’s warehouse.
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Engaging shopping experience
Infinity shopping shelves will ensure customers a more fun shopping experience. ISS technology can offer customers a gaming-like shopping experience with fun interaction possibilities.
Technologies Driving Infinity Shopping Shelves
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Touchscreens
Almost all Infinity Shopping Shelves applications include touchscreen capabilities. Instead of using an external mouse or keyboard, touchscreens provide a more natural interaction between the customers and the content. Touchscreens have gained widespread popularity with interactive digital signage and are now used to extend systems’ capabilities to guide the customer journey.
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QR Codes
QR Codes are a handy way to deliver information to a person directly to their smartphones. Customers scan the codes and are immediately directed to product pages, unique marketing campaigns, or shopping carts.
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Speech Recognition and Natural Language Understanding
Some digital displays are equipped with helpful speech recognition microphones similar to those in speech-enabled devices like smart speakers (for example, Amazon Echo or Google Nest). The objective is to enable interaction between the customer and the system through voice commands.
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Facial Detection and Recognition
Facial detection, in the context of Infinity Shopping Shelves, can be a potent tool for enabling security features like the authentication of customers. Moreover, facial recognition is expected to become a precious source of data from customers’ emotional reactions, gestures, and biometric information. This data will help companies optimize products and shopping experiences and improve personalized offers.
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Near Field Communication (NFC)
Near Field Communication (NFC) is becoming an increasingly important technology for shopping because it allows easy and secure payment through smartphones or touchless credit cards. NFC enables a short-range (4 cm or less) wireless transfer of information between devices.
Infinity Shopping Shelf Resources
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