Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Virgin Megastore Times Square installs 150 new IBM Anyplace kiosks

Virgin is no stranger to state-of-the-art merchandising techniques, and they've upped the ante with the installation of 150 IBM kiosks in a single store! As this press release notes:

"Customers at Virgin Entertainment Group's completely refurbished flagship Virgin Megastore in Manhattan's Times Square are using 150 of IBM's latest hands-on, customized kiosks to preview virtually any of the thousands of CDs, DVDs, and console games in the store and gain a world of music information on demand, IBM announced today.

"The world's premiere music-and-entertainment retailer, which promises an "emotionally exciting" shopping experience, has installed a custom application on 150 new IBM Anyplace Kiosks in its sprawling, three-level Manhattan store that is America's largest music-entertainment store. The IBM Anyplace Kiosks, built with a sleek and compact design engineered to withstand even the harshest retail environments, give shoppers the ability to sample more than 250,000 CDs, 11,000 DVDs and 7,000 games.

"Virgin refers to the 150 new kiosks as Virgin Vault Kiosks. Through the use of the scanning, browsing and recommendation kiosks, Virgin is placing an emphasis on helping its customers to try before they buy almost any product. The Times Square store will have more of the Virgin Vault Kiosks than any Virgin Megastore in the world.

"For example, a Virgin Megastore shopper interested in Kanye West's latest CD, 'Late Registration,' can instantly preview the CD, watch the video trailer for the DVD 'Million Dollar Baby,' or view reviews and screen shots from 'Madden NFL 2006.'"

They go on to talk about the possibility of guided selling -- using the self-service kiosks to suggest complementary products based on a browser's usage patterns. Definitely check out the article at the link above.

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