Big Lots: Big Savings with Aila’s In-Aisle Price Checkers

Big Lots is a non-traditional discount retailer operating more than 1,400 stores in 47 states. Like other off-price retailers, it’s a challenge for Big Lots to keep up with labeling each item in the store every day to accurately reflect current prices. 

Individually labeling items is time-consuming for associates and expensive for retailers. However, to provide a good customer experience (and to meet pricing regulations), stores still need an in-aisle solution for displaying real-time pricing information. 

That’s where price checkers come in. 

With the proliferation of consumer devices—such as the iPad—yesterday’s expensive, slow and single-function price checkers can be easily replaced with highly engaging in aisle experiences, across the store, on one platform. Further, they can do it at a lower cost than legacy systems. 

CHALLENGE

Big Lots needed to streamline the labeling process

Each year, retailers spend millions of dollars on changing price tags. This cost comes in the form of labels, printers, and—importantly—the countless hours of labor that associates spend attaching labels to each new product.

Aside from the financial impact on retailers, the customer experience too can suffer when shoppers aren’t able to find pricing information. Shoppers who can’t quickly and easily find out how much an item costs might abandon the purchase. Traditional price scanners—and those built on Android—lack the speed and precision required for an intuitive scanning experience. 

The lack of price checkers also meant that Big Lots shoppers had to seek out an associate and interrupt their current task to request a price check. Studies have found that the majority of shoppers find this to be a major inconvenience. 

“85% of consumers surveyed want to be able to check prices at price scanners throughout a store rather than having to ask a sales associate for pricing information.” Business Wire

This inefficiency was harming Big Lots’ bottom line. They needed a better way to think about in-aisle price checkers. 

They also had a logistics challenge that many retailers face—each store layout is different. As a result, whichever price checker solution they found would need to be equipped with versatile mounting options that could be used anywhere in their stores. And, since regulations require that certain price checkers be equipped with printers, their chosen solution would have to be compatible with receipt printers. 

SOLUTION

A versatile kiosk with flexible mounting options for any environment

Aila’s Interactive Kiosk provides a future-proof and cost-effective solution for in-aisle price checking. With floor, wall, and pole mounts, the Interactive Kiosk fits seamlessly into diverse retail environments. Further, the Interactive Kiosk can integrate easily with printers and other peripherals. This is of particular importance in Massachusetts, where some price scanners are required to have printers. 

With its enterprise-grade scanning, compatibility with thousands of iOS apps and ultra-modularity, Aila’s Interactive Kiosk has the potential to be used for a number of other in-aisle experiences, such as product discovery, personalized recommendations, endless aisle, and digital signage. This helps retailers like Big Lots prepare for the future of the in-aisle shopping experience.

Finally, the iOS-based Interactive Kiosk is easy to integrate with price checking apps and inventory databases. Support for frameworks like Xamarin, React Native, and Cordova provides added flexibility for quick integration with retailers’ existing apps. 

RESULTS

Real-time ROI & happier customers

After piloting Aila’s iPad-based Interactive Kiosk, Big Lots determined that it was the best solution for in-aisle price checking. Big Lots deployed the Interactive Kiosk in 55+ stores across New England and New York. 

A store manager reported that the kiosks save associates time and boost customer experience. Individually pricing items used to have to label products individually each day. Lack of pricing labels meant that shoppers were frequently asking associates for price checks, temporarily distracting them from their current tasks. 

Now, shoppers are free to scan items at any kiosk in the store, with some stores having up to six kiosks. Meanwhile, associates spend less time doing repetitive tasks like attaching price labels and stores spend less money on individually pricing each item.

—

Aila’s is helping leading retailers streamline brick-and-mortar operations and improve the customer experience. Get the solution sheet to see how to enhance your price checking and product discovery experience with the Interactive Kiosk: