Shenzhen Lean Kiosk Systems Co., Ltd. Company News

Time:2014-8-25  Hits: 18  Origin: kioskmarketplace   March 30, 2012 B2B Soft, a software company specializing in retail management for the wireless/cellular retail industry, and Cycle30, a provider of hosted order-to-cash billing services, announced they have deployed a new in-store payment kiosk platform at wireless provider GCI. The kiosks are deployed at six pilot locations now and will roll out to 19 more retail locations shortly. They extend GCI's Wireless Standard POS system by offering customers a self-service option to pay bills by cash or check using the same signature-capture device used in the POS terminal for credit and debit cards. The kiosks sport a streamlined, intuitive, GCI branded interface that is simple and easy to navigate. The point-of-sale user interface has helped position the Wireless Standard platform as a premier retail management platform. The standard is now deployed in more than 4,500 wireless retail locations throughout North America. The payment kiosks benefit GCI customers and customer service representatives alike. By using the kiosk, customers can save time and still have payments processed and posted immediately. Total transaction time is significantly reduced, increasing customer satisfaction. Meanwhile, GCI staff are freed to provide customer service for profitable sales transactions instead of taking bill payments. We've gotten great customer feedback in the stores so far,said Maureen Moore, GCI vice president for consumer services. We are very pleased with the B2B Soft payment kiosk and point-of-sale system deployed by Cycle30. GCI is providing a higher quality customer experience by making life easier for their customers with the ability to pay any or all of their bills immediately at an automated bill pay kiosk, says Gary Khabinski, B2B Soft CEO. We anticipate that the kiosks will make life easier across GCI's retail operation statewide, by using staff more effectively, reducing customer wait times and simplifying transactions and reconciliations. 〖 Print 〗 〖 Back 〗

Time:2014-8-26  Hits: 17  Origin: kioskmarketplace   Aug. 15, 2014   The town of Palm Beach City, Fla., is planning to replace older parking kiosks with smarter ones,according to the Palm Beach Daily News.   The 37 kiosks installed in 2008 had a 10-year life expectancy and cost the town approximately $312,000. The staff parking committee is looking to purchase replacements with up-to-date technology that are user- and smartphone-friendly for checking parking status via real-time mobile apps. Solar power and faster wireless connections are also on the committee's wish list.   Deputy town manager and parking committee chairman Tom Bradford said a better kiosk can range in individual cost from $10,000 to $15,000 or more.   "A kiosk is basically a modern outdoor vending machine that is attached to a cellphone and a personal computer inside a steel container in a hot, humid, saltwater environment," Bradford said in the article. "That being the case, I think it is unrealistic to think they are going to last for 10 years at a maximum level of performance."   Committee staff is collecting bids for proposals and installation is expected to take place in summer 2015. 〖 Print 〗 〖 Back 〗

Aug. 20, 2014   Telemedicine provider HealthSpot is out to improve health care access in Ohio, the company announced in a release.   HealthSpot intends to connect medical providers and patients in Ohio's health systems by rolling out 100 telemedicine stations in the state. The pharmacy-based health kiosks are designed to provide easy-access care, especially for patients who travel long distances to urgent care facilities and hospitals.   HealthSpot plans to target areas with frequent emergency room visits and longer patient wait times, the company said.

Aug. 21, 2014   One of the primary characteristics of the streets of Moscow has been its vendors, according toRussiaBeyondTheHeadlines.com    But city authorities saw the stalls, tents and booths as clutter to the area, and all vendors were shut down in 2010. The idea was to replace them with a modern, unified scheme, so the Moscow Committee for Architecture and City Planning looked into automated retail kiosks. The first kiosk was installed in the famous Pushkin Square, and the project resulted in cutting vendors by half — from 22,000 to 10,000 with the new stations.   Now Moscow's automated vending kiosks feature a screen with "robot eyes" and digital signage that says "Vsyo Sam," meaning "All By Myself," the name of the first company so far to take on the pilot project. The city spent 3.5 million rubles ($98 million) on the project, which has resulted in stations that sell items such as chocolate, headphones, shoe brushes and more, according to the article.   "The task is to verify whether people will be afraid of our kiosk or if they will react appropriately to it," said Alexander Zolotarev, the head of the group of companies who started the project. "Two to three hundred purchases a day will testify that people definitely do not fear it."   Market officials estimate each kiosks to cost around $40,000. Their projected payoff is about a year and half. The machines are expected to last 15 years.   Topics: Digital Signage , Payment Kiosk , Retail Kiosks , Tickets Vending Kiosks  

It's no surprise that interactive kiosks are popping up all over the retail landscape. Digital interactive kiosks offer innovative ways to interact with your customers, reach target audiences efficiently and thrive in today's competitive marketplace. Here are five ways interactive kiosks can work for your business: 1 Help your customers find the right product Interactive kiosks can help your customers zero in on the right product quickly and easily. Whether its selecting the right pillow, choosing a kids car seat or picking the right GPS system, kiosks can help customers to self-educate and select the right product for their needs without sales assistance. Many customers actually prefer to shop in this fashion without the need to interact with sales people. 2 Facilitate customer sales efficiently Interactive kiosks make an excellent sales assistant tool for your customer service representatives. For example, if a customer has a question about a specific product, such as a cellphone, a salesperson can lead them over to the interactive kiosk and direct them to the product they are specifically interested in. Simply by touching the screen or scanning a product, the customer can learn about pricing, view different color options, find buying guides and compare products on the spot. Interactive kiosks supplement the service from your salesperson and provide customers with the information they need even when a sales assistant is not immediately available to help. 3 Reduce "walk-outs" By keeping your customers engaged, they are less likely to leave the store while waiting for a sales representative to become available. Traffic volumes vary greatly in retail. When customers flood the store, interactive kiosks can begin the education and sales process until sales personnel are free.

Waiting it's an inevitable and even necessary aspect of human life. We wait in lines in order to purchase groceries; to be served at restaurants; to be attended to in a bank; at amusement parks; to see a movie.However complacent we have become with shuffling through queues, it is not an activity that most of us relish. And while there's no single elixir to eradicate life's many lines, there's certainly an arsenal of interactive technology that businesses can rely upon to prevent their customers from catching the disease of the waiting dead. This infographic from Kiosk Marketplace and Self-Service World illustrates the multiple line offenders the places commonly found to house apocalyptic backlogs of warm bodies and examples of how businesses are using kiosks to combat them. From airports and hotels to restaurants and retail stores, kiosks are being implemented to satisfy the growing number of consumers who prefer to use technology to expedite a transaction. If you like the infographic, please share it with your social networks via the toolbar at the top of the page. We also welcome you re-post the infographic on your blog or website using the embed code below the infographic.

Aug. 21, 2014   During peak mail seasons, with textbook arrivals and holiday cards and gifts, Loyola University Maryland students could spend a half hour or more waiting to retrieve packages, according to a press release.   At the same time, checking of student mailboxes had declined on Loyola's campus, as information technology changed. Many times mailboxes weren't checked through the year, causing additional work for university staff having to empty them at the end of the semester. One Loyola student, didn't discover a Valentine's Day card in her campus mailbox until April, the release said.   To address the issue, Loyola called on Tokyo-based Ricoh Americas Corp. to install a self-service mail kiosk, the Ricoh University Kiosk, on campus. The change resulted in more storage space and freed up 10,000 square feet for the university, the release said.   As a package arrives, students are notified via email. They pay a visit to the mail center kiosk and swipe their student ID, which automatically alerts mail staff to the characteristics and location of the student's package.   Instead of a traditional mail system, the Ricoh solution sorts mail into rolling racks. Small scanners worn on their finger allow employees to sort mail according to bar codes.  The bar codes send an automatic email alert to students who receive mail and also track wait time during pickup. Wait time has been reduced from 30 minutes to under a minute, according to the release.   Topics: Custom Kiosks , Education / Schools Kiosk , Post Office Kiosk , Self-Checkout Kiosk

Kimball, Nebraska has installed the states "first and only interactive travel kiosk."    The kiosk, which is housed at High Point Welcome Center in Kimball, was donated to the facility by the town's Kimball Partners. Users can access wayfinding information about the state and interactive maps with area attractions, lodging and shopping, the article said. It also gets the word out about local businesses with advertisements starting at $10 a month: "This works for you seven days a week. Pictures sell, and those of us who do marketing for the community know that pictures sell. Now you have a chance to show what you've got, out a video on it of what you've got," said Director of Kimball/Banner County Tourism Jo Caskey in the article.     Topics: Interactive / Touchscreen Kiosk , Tourism & Travel Kiosk , Transportation / Travel kiosk

Mintel has released an analysis of 2015 consumer trends.   The trends are likely to be the "most impactful for 2015," the company said. Among those are increasing demands for retail convenience and customization, "blurring the lines between digital and brick-and-mortar." The Internet transformed shopping to a need for convenience and immediacy that consumers now expect, Mintel reported. For example, the data found that 32 percent of facial skincare users are open to purchasing products on the go, such as those in vending machines and kiosks. Increasingly, shoppers are interested in new formats for obtaining products.   "At the heart of this trend is that our on-demand, instant gratification culture is spreading," said Mintel trends analyst Stacy Glasgow. "These conveniences also are not only for city-dwellers as more business models, including in-store pick-up or subscription services, bring the benefits of modern life to suburban and rural residents. This 'at-your-convenience' expectation is likely to influence other customer service-based industries, and we predict that consumers will want to see more customized, on-demand access to financial services, healthcare and more."   Topics: Retail Payment Kiosks , Trends / Statistics , Vending Bill Acceptor Kiosks

Shenzhen metropolis daily news (reporter Ting-ting gao) insurance relationship transfer voucher, personal rights and interests of the single, ginseng protect personal details...As long as you need, the social security self-service terminal can not only help you to query and printing, printed with GaiHaoDe red seal!Take number and "lines" farewell, farewell repeated affix one's seal.Recently, the reporter understands from the city social security bureau, shenzhen self-service terminals are partial upgrading of social security, the updated terminal can query and deal with 33 items of business. Reporter in the lo wu see many people are using kiosks, social security bureau operation is very simple, almost don't have to line up.It is reported that in recent years, zhuhai launched a variety of convenient new measures of social security branch, promote the equalization of public service of social security, will also be self-service terminal to the base of social security, let those people in the "home" to "one-stop" to deal with a number of social security business. According to introducing, self-service terminal has become the important supplement of the window of social security services.Fukuda branch, for example, in the branch of the department service hall to install the 32 self-service terminals, only provide individual ginseng protects certificate, social security relations transfer voucher printing business, such as average monthly services in more than 20000 people, more and more ginseng protect unit and ginseng protect people choose self-service terminal nearby to conduct social security business. At present, luohu branch of social security, Mr Fukuda, each branch and longhua branch has configured the 11 and 12 sets of 4, a new generation of kiosks.Respectively installed in futian district government affairs center, futian district service center of enterprise development, park ridge streets;Luohu district government affairs center, luohu district social security bureau;Longhua, wave three social security management, by the people, and for the foxconn campus and longhua new district social security bureau.According to the relevant person in charge of the above three branch, branch is underway to arrange other terminal upgrade, and strive to achieve a self-service terminals, personal web platform and WeChat public platform of "three network data seamless docking.   Keywords: business terminal of social security  

  Some issues to pay attention when giving cash changes Dispensing cash from your kiosk can be invaluable for making change for your customers like a human cashier, but also introduces several new challenges. Most people familiar with bill acceptors think of a bill recycler as simply an add-on component which dispenses cash, but this is far from the case. Dispensing bills greatly increases the complexity of the device and the logic required by your kiosk application in order to gracefully complete a cash transaction. All of these challenges can be overcome with careful planning and the reduced cashier expenses will be well worth the investment.   1. Running out of cash to dispense In order to avoid running out of cash to dispense, you will require detailed knowledge of your daily sales volume to gauge just how often you'll need to refill your bill recycler. At first, you'll want to regularly refill your bill recycler and determine the number of bills remaining of each denomination. This knowledge will be useful for determining the right bill denominations to recycle. We also recommend building a real-time notification system into your kiosk application which lets you know exactly when your bill recycler reaches critical thresholds. The MEI BNR has support for defining notification thresholds but it's up to you to roll your own notification system. With careful monitoring and regular refilling you can help ensure that your bill recycler will have the notes necessary to make change.   2. Choosing the right bill denominations to recycle A common misconception about bill recyclers is that they can dispense bills of any denomination. The reality is that just because your bill acceptor can accept a bill of a certain denomination doesn't mean it can dispense that denomination. Your bill recycler limits the number of denominations you can recycle. The MEI BNR, one of the largest bill recyclers, limits you to four denominations due to its four recyclers. Smaller recyclers like the MEI SCR limit you to two denominations of your choosing. The MEI VNR, an even smaller bill recycler designed for vending, limits you to dispensing only $1 and $5 notes. The process of choosing the right denominations to recycle varies per business. For instance, if your device has four recyclers and most of the transactions are less than $20, then it would be best to disallow accepting notes over $20 and then filling your recyclers with only $1 and $5 notes. For larger transactions, typically reaching into the hundreds of dollars, then it would be wise to have a couple recyclers with higher denomination notes.   3. Device constraints with the number of bills that can be dispensed Your bill recycler will have a limit on the number of bills it can dispense, often referred to as a "note count limit." Let's take a look at how the note count limit affects giving change. For example, if the transaction total is $125 and your customer inserts $200, this means that $75 is due. If you’re only dispensing $1 and $5 notes then the bill stack may reach the note limit of a recycler. In this case, your kiosk application will have to be smart enough to handle dispensing change from multiple transactions. When the note limit is overrun, then multiple dispense transactions will be necessary to give change to your customers. Additional logic will have to be implemented to ensure that all transactions can successfully dispense change or else we’re stuck with partial change. As you can see there's a lot more to dispensing change then just sending a message to your bill recycler instructing it to dispense a given dollar amount.   4. What if the customer doesn't have enough cash to complete the transaction? When I talk about "rolling back a transaction," I'm referring to the scenario where the customer doesn't have enough cash to complete the transaction, They should get their money back right? Yes, but there may be a problem with that. Let me explain why rolling back a transaction might not always work. Let’s say your bill recycler is configured to dispense $1, $5, $10 and $20 notes. Now let’s say the customer need to insert $910 to complete their transaction. She inserts four $100 notes and 25 $20 notes for a total of $900. At this point she is $10 short and doesn't have the cash on hand to complete the transaction, Since you have a bill recycler capable of dispensing cash you want to refund her money right? This brings up an issue. The four $100 notes she inserted are now in the cashbox and cannot be dispensed. Remember, your device is configured to recycle only smaller bills, not $100 notes. This means that your bill recycler has to find the extra $400 to make up for those notes in the recyclers. What happens if there isn’t another $400 in the recyclers to give? Even if there is the available cash to dispense, SHOULD you dispense the available $400 and massively deplete your smaller bills? Doing so could cause you to run out of cash to dispense for future transactions much sooner than anticipated. This is also why the real-time notification system is a good idea, so you can detect critical thresholds and react accordingly. This also brings me back to my point on the importance of choosing the right denominations to recycle. If you fail to do so you may not be able to return the customer's money in a case where they can't complete the transaction.   5. Not having exact change What should you do in the case when your bill recycler doesn’t have the exact change available to dispense? Let’s say you owe the customer $50 change and your bill recycler only has $45. Should you dispense partial change to the customer and direct the customer to get their remaining $5 from a cashier? Or maybe don’t dispense change at all and direct the customer to a cashier in order to receive the full amount. This is a difficult question that you'll have to answer based on what makes the most sense for your business. The morale of the story, is make sure don't run out of change by refilling your bill recycler frequently and ideally using a notification system.  

Outdoor kiosks are typically two, sometimes three times the cost of indoor kiosks. The reasons are varied but can best be summarized as follows:     Kiosk Design: An outdoor kiosk needs to be designed from the ground up as a watertight enclosure. It is generally not cost-effective to try to modify an indoor kiosk model to be outdoors compliant. The primary reason for this is that the kiosk needs to have all seams watertight and must be insulated on the inner walls to protect from heat and cold. Outdoor kiosks also need to be much more durable in construction as they will more often than not, be in unsupervised environments. After all is said and done, the outdoor enclosure (the cabinet only) is twice the cost of a comparable indoor unit.     Kiosk Display: The monitor must not be susceptible to .sunlight washout.. The effect is most commonly seen on ATM machines in the sunlight: you cannot read what.s on the screen due to direct or indirect sunlight. The solution is high backlighting and this can only be done on LCD monitors. LCD monitors in themselves are a bit more expensive than CRT monitors, although the cost differences are narrowing. High backlighting more than triples the cost of a LCD. For example, a 15. LCD with touch screen and with high backlighting and will cost about $2,000. The decision to use high backlighting is up to the customer but if they decline, we will want that in writing. Before you ask, we will not deliver outdoor kiosks without the LCD solution. We will never provide a CRT solution. The CRT approach has proven to yield unsatisfactory results and we want no part of that since an unsatisfactory monitor solution is virtually assured.     HVAC: The kiosk may well require a heater/air conditioner installed to maintain an acceptable temperature and humidity inside the kiosk. Depending on the environment, we may have to use various degrees of air treatment methods, which may add up to $3,200 to the cost of the kiosk. There are some areas in the country that may allow outdoor solutions without HVAC or your outdoor installation may be in-wall where you can take advantage of air conditioning in the building for your kiosk. The issue, however, is not only heat but also humidity. Protecting the electronics inside the kiosk is expensive.       PC Hardware:  Because of heat generated by the components inside the kiosk (mostly by the LCD and the PC), we recommend the use of a very small form factor, low heat generating PC. This adds to the PC cost a bit but lowers the amount of heat that must be removed by the air treatment/conditioner system. Bigger PCs generate more heat and more heat means more expensive and capable air treatment/conditioning which costs more, etc., etc.     Kiosk installation:  This is an extra and un-calculated cost of outdoor kiosks. Typically, outdoor kiosks need to be bolted to the ground, which implies that they have a level cement slab on which to be mounted. There must be power and whatever other connectivity you will need, delivered to the kiosk (frequently underground and through the cement slab). The power cables and connections must also be watertight and in agreement with local electrical standards which vary from state to state. The site preparation for this could be costly and time-consuming, as you will have building permits, specific guidance from the state or local government, specific subcontractors that must be used and related costs and delays to complete this.