VANCOUVER, B.C. -- 7-Eleven Inc. has been pushing its Vcom financial-services kiosks for the better part of a decade. Select ExxonMobil, Sunoco and Circle K stores have added bill-payment kiosks, with more locations coming online in the near future. But it's not just the big guys working to raise the volume on the current kiosk boom.
I'm looking for something that probably will not be that big of a revenue builder, but will bring people into the store, a single-store Iowa retailer told CSP Daily News on condition of anonymity. I wanted to go to the kiosk [image-nocss] convention, but couldn't fit it into my schedule. There were a lot of big names from our industry on the list to attend that convention.
Instead, the retailer has gone to every kiosk website there is and talked to 20 different vendors to find ways to make money with financial services or other opportunities tied to a recently installed but yet-to-be-promoted wireless-fidelity hub.
Convenience stores match up well with financial-services kiosk users, many of which are unbanked, meaning they don't have relationships with traditional banking institutions. More than 10.2 million adults are unbanked. Most of them are blue collar, and more than half of them are women, according to a May 2006 report from Scarborough Research, Unbanked Consumers: A Unique Opportunity for Financial Marketers.
The whole issue of monetizing cash acceptance through self-serve devices is really going to build up, Hamed Shahbazi, chairman and CEO of TIO Networks Corp., Vancouver, B.C., told CSP Daily News. TIO Networks provides ExxonMobil's eWiz and Circle K's Zaplink kiosks. If you look at the demographics of the convenience store shopper, the unbanked community fits in well. [C-stores] are already serving customers that require cash-based services, so it's a natural evolution.
Kiosks have many benefits in addition to their ability to generate traffic. They negate human error and behavior, for starters. With the average utility payment totaling $150, according to Shahbazi, self-service kiosks help shield retailers from risk of theft.
Dallas-based 7-Eleven's Vcom terminals, which occupy more than 1,000 stores, offer services such as check cashing, money orders/transfers, bill payment, prepaid MasterCard cards and long-distance services, on top of traditional ATM services. Circle K's Zaplink kiosks, meanwhile, offer Internet access and enable cash-preferred customers to view personal accounts. Users can also pay wireless, utility and cable bills, updating their accounts in the process.
In the future, 7-Eleven plans to install Vcoms in all 5,400 of its domestic stores, according to a recent New York Times report, while Circle K and ExxonMobil have both publicly stated plans to expand kiosk offers to additional storesand to boost the types of services offered.
Event ticketing, couponing and tax payments are among other services likely to become mainstreamed on financial-services kiosks. Retailers are wise to offer such variety, but industry experts suggest there's a delicate balance between having a comprehensive menu and distracting the customer. Translation: Don't try to be all things to all people.
The problem that many developers get into is that they layer on too many products that don't speak to the same consumer, said Shahbazi, whose company has kiosks in more than 800 North American locations. If you're hitting in too many different places that aren't cohesive or intuitive, you may lose the customer.
An ATM, for example, will most likely work well only as an ATM because users want speed of service. Those using kiosks to pay their bills, on the other hand, want to take their time and complete their transactions at a comfortable pace.
An ATM is 18 seconds and you're done, Craig Keefner, manager for self-service terminal manufacturer and designer Kiosk Information Systems, Louisville, Colo., said. If you get beyond that and try to become more than that, it ceases to be an ATM. It's like trying to make a toilet into a washbowl.
Scouring drugstores, supermarkets and other channels for ideas can help c-stores uncover new paths to increased foot traffic. Entertainment kiosks, for example, could become big business for c-stores.
There are new things coming along outside of financial services that will start hitting the pike for c-stores, said Keefner. Videos, music downloads and mobile-phone ringtones are big in entertainment services. For [retailers] that have these micro-environments that are sort of gathering places in their stores, they definitely have some options.
Watch for the May issue of CSP magazine for more on financial-services kiosks and other in-store technologies.
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