Panasonic Reinvents the Shopping Experience for a Digital Age

OREANDA-NEWS. The National Retail Federation's (NRF) Annual Convention & EXPO, nicknamed "Retail's BIG Show," is the organization's flagship event, held annually at the Javits Center in New York City. From January 11 to 13, 2015, the event is a showcase for new technologies and solutions targeting the global retail market.

Panasonic joined more than 33,000 industry insiders for the NRF show. Conference sessions centered on reinventing the retail store experience in the digital age and this theme resonated throughout the Panasonic exhibit booth.

In conjunction with its exhibit space, Panasonic leveraged the conference as a platform to announce new solutions engineered for the retail space including the Toughpad FZ-R1, the industry's first (as of Jan. 2015) 7-inch all-in-one mobile POS tablet running Windows 8.1, the Stingray III enterprise-grade fixed POS terminal and the Powershelf Next Generation Shelving Solution.

These products are part of the company's expanding solutions portfolio targeting retailers of various sizes and sub-markets including "Big Box" retailers, department stores, supermarkets, table service restaurants, quick service restaurants and hotels. Panasonic's retail solutions are engineered to help retailers adapt and grow in today's evolving marketplace by increasing sales, improving efficiencies, reducing shrinkage, expanding insight into customer habits and reducing technology downtime. They are also aimed at enhancing the omni-channel approach to sales that seeks to provide the customer with a seamless shopping experience whether online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone or in a bricks and mortar store.

Over three nights, the facades of a dozen New York City buildings around Times Square featured larger than life projection mapping installations of Panasonic's new Toughpad FZ-R1. The building displays were among the creative marketing activities Panasonic System Communications Company of North America leveraged to promote the new Toughpad and its cutting-edge booth at the NRF show. The company also used geo-targeted Taxi TV commercials featuring the FZ-R1 launch video.

Thanks to a strong marketing effort, creative booth design and other activities aimed at highlighting the company's ability to reinvent the customer's shopping experience, Panasonic enjoyed a significant increase in booth traffic, media coverage and sales opportunity versus last year's event.