Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Digital Signage as a Retail product


From Today's DigitalSignageToday.com
"Is the future of digital signage for sale, retail?"
"LG Electronics USA recently announced that it had struck a deal with retailer Fry's Electronics Inc. to feature an LG digital signage solution at the chain's 34 nationwide locations and on the retailer's website."

In an earlier article "Unaccounted and Digital Signage" (High Resolution November 13, 2009, I argued that the LCD makers should produce a dual mode LCD platform, one that is capable of performing both as digital signage and as a consumer TV. LG actually has offered such a product and has now gone a step further, the important step, in offering digital signage displays through an electronics retailer. This solves several important problems both for the LCD maker, for brick and mortar retailers, and for the consumer.

With TV volumes stagnant and with increasing sales through on-line retailers, digital signage sales offer a new category and new volume to the retailer. Digital signage LCDs, with all of their unique features such as extra brightness for outdoors, offer a new up-sell opportunity for the retailer to home TV set consumers. For the digital signage purchaser, availability of digital signage displays through local retail outlets offer immediate availability of both displays for new installations, spares availability, and lower overall distribution costs. For the TV Set consumer, digital signage in retail offers the opportunity to take advantage of some of the digital signage features, some of which may not be so obvious.

I have previously argued on one of the digital signage LinkedIN blogs that since most large TVs are delivered (either by purchase on-line or by brick and mortar store delivery) to the home, Individual packaging for TVs was somewhat wasteful. With retail availability of digital signage, presumably, some of the signage will come in multi-packs and I would expect 55" and larger TVs to be available in multi-packs as well.

Beyond that, as I have related elsewhere, At Digital Signage Expo, I asked one of the display industry luminaries if digital signage could ever be as big for the display industry as TV. He gave me a blank stare and could not answer. With US growth rates (in number of screens deployed per year) exceeding 30% through the recession, certainly going forward the volumes could be substantial. Channeling much of this volume through retail will re-energize the entire TV category and lead to increased innovation as new features that are first introduced in commercial product, find their way into the home. In the end, the decision to offer signage through retail may be the biggest innovation in TV since the introduction of flat panels.

Norm

8 comments:

  1. Trackback: http://www.displayalliance.com/news/the-display-industry-news-roundup-for-882012.html

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  2. For those not familiar with Fry's, the stores serve as the closest thing to the Akihabara that you will find in the US. More importantly, Fry's customers are frequently either the innovators or the "early adopters" of new technology. When I was marketing the SuperDisk in the storage market, it was very important for us to get placement in Fry's as that stimulated comment in the electronics trade press and eventually drove adoption of the technology by the PC OEMs.

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  3. Intel is getting in on the act as well. Intel's NUC mini-desktop was originally designed for the signage market. It seemed such a useful device that Intel will begin offering it for general sale. As I have posted elsewhere, the digital signage market will grow to be very large and vibrant. Rather than being purely adaptions of TV set technology I expect that digital signage will start pioneering new technology that goes the other way, into consumer TV sets. The story can be found here

    http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/11/intel-nuc-costs-around-400/

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  4. Great informative post about Digital Signage. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. Digital signage spreading more to the world cause it is really useful to those who have business.Thank you for sharing

    Digital signage

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  6. Digital Signage is another revolution as far as the marketing field is concerned.

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  7. Having this kind of product helps business sectors introduce a particular product or service to the market. Both will benefit to the digital signage being displayed. Thank you for sharing.

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