What They Say
Invidis published an interesting article on displays used in refrigerator doors, especially by Cooler Screens which had raised $100 million to develop the category and had a contract to install doors for Walgreen. It covered 2,500 stores and the firm now operates more than 10K display doors.
However, there has been some kickback against these doors, which are not transparent, but solid. To counter the criticisms, Cooler Screens surveyed consumers and found that 90% were positive, preferring display doors to transparent doors. The display on the Cooler Screen system is intended to show what is in the cabinet, but Invidis said that the implementation made consumers wait for an advert to display before showing the content. That’s not cool. (pun intended!)
CNN reported on the problem here.
What We Think
Doh! Making consumers wait is not the central function of a ‘convenience’ store.
In the past I have talked with companies promoting this concept. LG won a big project in Scandinavia for doors for soft drink dispensers, but mainstream retailers in Europe, like Iceland, which specialises in frozen goods, told me that they are already under huge pressure over green and energy issues and anything that uses more energy is a problem. Display doors get warm because of the lighting needed with the relatively low aperture ratio (compared to plain glass). (BR)
