BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Dirty great big plasma screens are all the rage in retail at the moment. They can display all sorts of sales info and promotional videos.
A high-class fishmongers uses one with a looped film of a goldfish tank playing above the fish for sale.
Greggs, the bakers, uses three of them on top of each other at entrances to its stores. They play an assortment of Greggs TV ads as well as price offers that day.
On a much smaller scale Sony has launched a digital photo frame which has a 5.5 inch liquid crystal screen. This could be used as a mini plasma screen for use in IBD point of sale displays.
As well as digital photos (which can be played in slide show mode) the snappily titled PHD-A55 can play MPEG videos and audio. It uses memory stick technology so wont work with flash memory cards although PC users could transfer data across with the appropriate memory stick reader.
So, for IBDs who wanted the lastest in tech chic, the Sony digital photo frame could be used to display rolling photos and video of a bike or bike bit in action. Take a photo of a price card and a few selling words, merge with a short MPEG video and a quick soundtrack and youve got a little piece of POS magic that no other retailer is using at the moment.
Price? A bonkers £600 but, as with all things digital, that will plummet.
The PHD-A55 is currently on back order and wont be a stock item until July. Call your local Sony Centre for details. Tel: 0990 111 999.
www.sony.co.uk
