Tuesday, March 30

HMV Facilitates Home Delivery In-Store in Japan | CScout Trend Consulting

Written By CScout Japan on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 10:03 PM | In Japan, Technology Please Comment

hmv_home_orderHMV Japan have introduced a new touch-screen console unit in its retail stores that allows customers to search the branch’s available stock, and then order missing items and have it sent directly to their homes. The machine then prints out a receipt with a bar code, which the customer takes to the cash register to pay for their order. HMV then finds the item in its overall stock or gets it from a supplier, sending it to the customer at no shipping cost (as of writing).

HMV has introduced consoles to all its 59 stores in Japan, 149 units in total, storing 50-70,000 titles. The majority are music and DVD products but there are also books, magazines and merchandise available. HMV Japan already has full online shopping services (including free delivery for magazines and books), digital music distribution services and mail magazines for members.

Japanese stores are already smaller than western ones and music stores in particular are looking to cut space. The system creates a store that never goes out of stock, providing one of the benefits of online shopping, but also for a society that prefers cash payment and is used to efficient home deliveries. HMV will easily also be able to merge the system with mobile device promotions in the future.

Posted via web from sophie's posterous

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