Several years ago, Best Buy Canada anticipated the growing need to provide consumers with increased interactivity and design in a physical retail experience. To that end, the company embarked on a multi-year effort to enhance approximately 30 of its premier experience store locations across Canada with new interactive digital signage.
“Our goal is to help customers enrich their lives through technology with a rewarding shopping experience, both online and in-store,” said Sean Wilson, Vice President of Store Design for Best Buy Canada. “To deliver on this promise, we invested heavily in the latest interactive digital signage to make it easy for our in-store customers to enjoy an immersive shopping experience unmatched by our competitors.”
Best Buy Canada’s state-of-the-art experience stores feature several new zones, each designed to enhance the shopping experience with interactive displays that enable customers to learn about and even demo the products they’re considering. An “endless aisle” concept is central to the redesign – using interactive displays to deliver near-limitless information about products on the retail floor, as well as other products that can be ordered online and delivered to customers’ homes.
A Dolby ATMOS Experience invites customers to enjoy the comfort of a home theater setting and use a touchscreen controller to immerse themselves in an ATMOS-powered sight and sound environment. By selecting featured videos and toggling between ATMOS, Stereo and Soundbar audio options, customers appreciate the potential of revolutionary home entertainment technology available at Best Buy Canada.
Smart Home is a new frontier for many customers who are learning how these products can improve and secure their homes. At Best Buy Canada, customers are attracted to displays broadcasting the benefits of each product and then can interact to learn more by scrolling through available options and read reviews from other customers. Switching between a variety of products, customers can choose what would fit best within their home and budget while delving into a world of new possibilities.
Traditional areas of the store, like Appliances and Computing Solutions, are also offering customers more information and options than ever before. Interactive kiosks speed customers to the appliance option they are looking for, complete with detailed features and real-time pricing. An interactive “ink finder” enables customers to quickly identify replacement ink cartridges for their particular printer. All told, Best Buy Canada’s experience stores contain more than a dozen interactive experiences with a variety of triggers and touch options.
Behind the programming and development of these solutions is Convergent Media Systems, which is focused on building innovative interactive experiences on the industry-leading BrightSign platform. Convergent integrated with Best Buy Canada’s API and developed much of the back-end content flow using BrightSign’s BrightAuthor software platform. BrightSign’s XD1033 digital signage media players drive content on the various displays, enabling the interactive customer experiences and triggering product demos when selected by the customer.
“This high-visibility project demanded the very best hardware to ensure flawless operation,” said John Campbell, Convergent’s SVP, Technology and Operations. “BrightSign’s players deliver the reliability we needed, along with the flexibility to create and manage content exactly as Best Buy envisioned, and deliver a superior customer experience.”
As of March 2018, approximately 30 Best Buy stores in Canada had been retrofitted with the new interactive signage, with more to come. Strategy Online recently named Best Buy the Retail Innovator of the Year based on the success of their new experience store format.
