AOPEN: Enhancing Offline Retail Experience through Digitalization

Stephen Borg, CEO

“People don’t buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” This adage by Seth Godin, Author, Entrepreneur, and Marketer aptly resonates with the retail industry. The retail sector is growing at a staggering rate across the globe, with 13-digit sales numbers to back it up. However, numbers aren’t the be-all and end-all part of this industry, it is a lot more than robotic delivery of goods and services and crunching relevant numbers. Customers today are on the lookout for relationships and AOPEN, a thought leader in digital signage and global electronics manufacturer, is a company that not only masters the retail sector but also indulges in forging meaningful long-term relationships with an open-hearted zeal.

Stephen Borg, Global CDO, AOPEN explains, “Our technologies enable our customers to communicate with shoppers through dynamic, exciting media, leaving a lasting impression through compellingly presented, rich, and increasingly personalized information.” This approach to retail along with the company’s provision of commercial products and applied business solutions has helped it to be a leader in the market. While positive rapport with customers is a must in this customer-centric sector, recognizing the importance of omni-channel marketing is an essential part of new age retailing. Thus, AOPEN works towards helping major brands and clients in engaging customers across digital and physical retail spaces. This strategy of the firm to engage in both online and offline retail spaces is based on the belief that ‘Traditional retailers can offer the best experience in the context of an exciting, informative, entertaining, engaging, and tangible shopping environment, and AOPEN can supplement it by providing technology that enhances’.

With information-hungry, price-savvy, mobile-empowered shoppers expecting digital interaction and engagement, it has become imperative to move from ‘connecting the channels’ to ‘blending the channels’ to support brick and mortar stores.

So, AOPEN directs its energy amplifying custom-ers’ instant gratification, sensory inspiration, convenience, social interaction, and localness. Also to drive business value, AOPEN focuses on four principles: cost optimization, enabling floor staff with right tools, increasing basket uplift, and creating a compelling experience. With a firm foot-in to integrate digital technology into offline stores, the global company now partners with Google to co-create a range of dedicated display devices. These devices can drive content to personal devices and add simplicity, control and cost effectiveness to grocery retailers.

AOPEN works towards helping major brands and clients in engaging customers across digital and physical retail spaces

The firm has also launched Retail Evolution Labs across the globe, with its first pilot site in Australia, that include 4k video walls, multi-touch interactive experiences, cashless payment kiosks, and vibrant digital menu boards. These spaces assist retailers to better understand customers to bring innovation into their business and consequently thrive in it.

A lot of companies in sectors like Retail, Transportation, Banking& Finance, Hospitality, and Entertainment have profited immensely from AOPEN’s Digital Signage. One of the firms which benefitted from AOPEN is Famous Fish. A renowned seafood company in Australia, Famous Fish-caught itself incapable of handling its high-traffic environments and was in dire need of a modern, robust, responsive, durable, and user-friendly technology. That technology was provided by AOPEN collaborating with Google to develop the Commercial Chrome Technology hardware and software platform. After its deployment, Famous Fish witnessed a transaction boost of 29 percent also serving the purpose of high-performance, cost-effectiveness, quick service, and also brand awareness.

AOPEN also services other global clients such as Pandora Jewellery, Lush Cosmetics, The Coca – Cola company, Inglot, Sephora, H&M, CSIRO and the US treasury.

A hallmark of a modern thriving company is the way it moves with the times. AOPEN in the years ahead not only seeks to keep up with the changing times but also transform itself at every available opportunity. The company aims to launch a rapid application layer, meldCX as a retail nervous system framework, integrating multiple apps into a Chrome/Windows operating system. Borg elucidates, “A single command centre - including PoS, Endless Aisle, CRM, Kiosk Ordering, Digital Signage, E-commerce, Virtual Reception, and more.”