Switching to digital signage for your store is a major decision. For one, you’d need to rip out all your physical store signs and replace them with shiny screens.
But once you’ve made the upfront investment in your electronic signage, creating digital display content for it is simple and can work wonders in:
- Increasing store footfall,
- Directing customers to your deals, and
- Improving the shopping experience to keep customers coming back.
How can digital signage for retail stores work such magic? Let’s explore five ways they can do just that—and how you can get started with retail digital signage in just two steps.
How can you use digital signage for your retail operations?
1. Attract customers to enter your store
Your store could be full of the latest goodies and the sweetest discounts, but if customers aren’t aware of these, they might just walk past your store without a second glance.
You won’t make much revenue this way, so put up digital signage content that promotes your products and ongoing sales!
Sure, physical signs can do the same job, but constantly reprinting your signs whenever you want to publicize different products can be a hassle.
Just take a look at how home cleaning products retailer Clean House used digital signage for advertising its stores, for example.
The brand wanted to get more people into its stores, so it created attention-grabbing digital signage content for its promotions and compiled these into a playlist.
Clean House then streamed its digital signage playlist on its street-facing store windows:
“And so far [our digital signage has] worked beautifully—we’ve seen a major increase in customers coming into our stores,” shared Ani Nadirashvili, Head of Marketing for Clean House.
(To get its digital screens up, Clean House worked with digital signage platform Fugo—which is a partner of PosterMyWall. Learn more about creating digital signage content with PosterMyWall’s Fugo integration here.)
2. Draw attention to your in-store marketing campaigns
You’ve gotten customers to enter your store. Now, engage them with signage content that draws their attention to your best deals.
For this purpose, we’d recommend using video or animated signage content.
While static imagery is easier to design, dynamic digital content tends to be more eye-catching and will hold your customers’ interest in your marketing campaigns for longer. It’ll also let you display more information within a fixed amount of space as you can cycle through various marketing content from a single screen.
For instance, cosmetics retailer Models Own installed large video walls to serve as a “visual focal point” in its flagship store:
By doing so, the brand could screen dynamic signage content for showcasing new cosmetics and promotions. It could also update its digital signs with just a few clicks whenever it had new content to feature.
“The digital video walls have helped to create a powerful in-store atmosphere, promoting our brand and promotional activity with impact and at speed,” praised Mark Rodol, CEO of Models Own.
3. Provide an interactive customer experience
Elevate your use of digital signage by making them interactive! In other words, the content your digital signage shows isn’t fixed in advance, but changes based on how customers engage with your screen.
A common example would be interactive directories on touch screens, where customers can get tailored store directions from their current location. But check out what Lenovo has done previously:
The electronics retailer installed “selfie walls” in two of its PC World store brand zones. Customers could take a selfie against the brand’s selfie wall and upload their photo to social media for a chance to win a laptop. They could also get a printout of their selfie on the spot.
Talk about a unique way of implementing engaging digital signage!
4. Conveniently communicate your latest product prices
Updating physical pricing labels can be a pain.
First, you’d need to edit your pricing label and print it out. After that, you’d have to hunt down your product on your shelf so you can swap its outdated pricing label with the new one.
This is manageable if you have only one pricing label to replace. But if you’re updating dozens of labels in one sitting, you could end up accidentally labeling your products with the wrong prices.
The simpler solution is to use retail digital signage, where all your products will have small electronic pricing displays under them—such as these in a store for beauty products retailer L’Oréal:
You can then update their prices from the comfort of your office and have your changes automatically reflected in-store.
Apart from that, you can also use digital signage to set up price-checker kiosks!
At these kiosks, customers can scan your products and get their prices from anywhere within your shop.
This video demonstrates a price-checker kiosk in action in an Edeka supermarket:
(The L’Oréal electronic pricing labels and Edeka price-checker kiosk were made possible with the help of PosterMyWall’s digital signage partner NoviSign. Find out how to create digital signage content with NoviSign and PosterMyWall here.)
5. Let customers ring up their purchases themselves
One of the latest retail optimization trends is self-checkout, which involves offering special cash register stations for customers to check out their items themselves.
With self-checkout, customers tend to enjoy shorter checkout times than having to wait for a cashier to assist them. You save money on hiring cashiers, too.
And guess what helps power self-checkout station screens? Digital signage.
When a customer scans an item, the digital sign will immediately reflect the item’s name and price, and total up the customer’s shopping bill as they go along.
More advanced self-checkout digital signage will also have touchscreen capabilities for customers to scroll through their bill or select their preferred payment method, for example.
Case in point: this self-checkout station at sporting goods store Decathlon. Watch how the information on the screen changes as the staff taps it!
How to get started with digital signage content
Wowed by the possibilities for using digital signage in your retail operations? Then here’s how you can set it up in just two steps—namely, Design and Display.
1. Design your digital signage content
Prepare your playlist of digital signage content for featuring on your screens. If you have more resources at your disposal, you could hire a design agency to produce bespoke digital signage content for you.
Otherwise, there are many digital display templates created by talented designers and agencies you could adapt for your store. Here are some examples:
Once you’ve picked a digital signage template, use our PosterMyWall editor to design it into a one-of-a-kind digital sign.
Customize the template’s colors and fonts, and upload your product images. You could even add an animation or two if you’re creating dynamic signage content!
2. Display your digital signage content
When you’re happy with your digital signage content, broadcast it on your screens.
Smart TVs will typically have built-in publishing tools for receiving and displaying digital signage content. Alternatively, for more advanced digital signage publication controls, consider working with a digital signage platform such as Fugo, SignageLive, ScreenCloud, and NoviSign.
These platforms integrate with PosterMyWall for directly receiving your digital signage designs from PosterMyWall—no tedious downloading or transmission needed. This includes any changes you make to your designs later, which will be instantly synced across too.
From there, you can use your preferred digital signage platform to:
- Compile stunning digital signage playlists,
- Showcase your signage content on multiple screens, and even
- Customize the signage you show on different days and times of the week.
Ramp up your retail sales with digital signage
As this guide has shown, the benefits of digital signage in retail are plenty! Browse our selection of retail digital signage templates, customize your favorite, and then get ready to show off your digital signs in your store. Our digital signage partners are more than happy to help if you need a leg-up with your signage display efforts.
The Gradient blog is also packed with resources if you want more insights on creating beautiful digital signage that delights your customers from the moment they enter your store, and until they leave with big smiles on their faces.
Qasim is a senior editor at PosterMyWall. Qasim is a reader and writer during and after work, and likes to explore a wide range of topics and niches. Outside of work, he likes to meditate, listen to good music and journal.
