Despite pressure in recent years, malls continue to be an important part of the retail landscape. Mall traffic, while still down from pre-pandemic levels, is making an impressive comeback as shoppers continue to search for ways to combine shopping and entertainment. While retail mall kiosks have been around for decades, they are increasingly being seen by mall owners and investors as a viable source of incremental revenue.
CBD mall kiosks are a win-win for mall owners as well as kiosk operators. Mall owners can achieve higher sales per square foot by taking advantage of non-dedicated common areas that might otherwise be considered dead space. In addition, mall kiosks can help to drive shoppers to the mall as they expand product offerings and keep things interesting in much the same way that street vendors create traffic and buzz in small tourist towns. Similarly, mall kiosk owners benefit from the existing mall foot traffic while also avoiding the expense and commitment of opening a full store and getting locked into a long-term lease. It also can be a great way for eCommerce sellers to dip their toe in the water of physical retail, press the flesh with live customers, and do some real-time brand-building. Check out these kiosk designs for malls.
While retail mall kiosks come in all different shapes and sizes, let’s take a look at a recent CBD mall kiosk we designed and fabricated for Club Nirvana. The kiosk, which was placed in a Southern California mall, was designed to market and sell the company’s line of CBD and related health and wellness products.
The kiosk featured primarily MDF and wood construction with acrylic accents. The main structure included a counter top on two sides with inside locking storage.
We designed in generous amounts of LED lighting in the main kiosk cabinets, the overhead structure, and the upper branded lightbox. The kiosk was well located just outside the entrance of Target which attracts significant foot traffic within the mall.
A signature part of the design was the clear acrylic panel on which we printed a wavy pattern to create interest. We used the acrylic panel to support floating wood shelves which were used to display Club Nirvana’s product line.
Aside from the logo lightbox, we included 3D laser-cut acrylic logos to help build brand recognition of the Club Nirvana brand.
We incorporated two 43” touchscreen digital media players which not only served to draw attention to the kiosk from those passing by, but they provided a way for shoppers to learn about Club Nirvana’s product line interactively without the assistance of a sales person. The touchscreens were built into locking cabinets that could open so the touchscreens could be easily serviced.
Finally, we incorporated 6 iPad stands that could be used by customers to order products and execute payment transactions.
The combination of an overall visually appealing structure, ample lighting, clear and consistent branding, clean merchandising space, digital media with self-service functionality, and self-service payment transition capability made this mall kiosk a winner.
Jim Hollen is the owner and President of RICH LTD. (www.richltd.com), a 35+ year-old California-based point-of-purchase display, retail store fixture, and merchandising solutions firm which has been named among the Top 50 U.S. POP display companies for 9 consecutive years. A former management consultant with McKinsey & Co. and graduate of Stanford Business School, Jim Hollen has served more than 3000 brands and retailers over more than 20 years and has authored nearly 500 blogs and e-Books on a wide range of topics related to POP displays, store fixtures, and retail merchandising.
Jim has been to China more than 50 times and has worked directly with more than 30 factories in Asia across a broad range of material categories, including metal, wood, acrylic, injection molded and vacuum formed plastic, corrugated, glass, LED lighting, digital media player, and more. Jim Hollen also oversees RICH LTD.’s domestic manufacturing operation and has experience manufacturing, sourcing, and importing from numerous Asian countries as well as Vietnam and Mexico.
His experience working with brands and retailers spans more than 25 industries such as food and beverage, apparel, consumer electronics, cosmetics/beauty, sporting goods, automotive, pet, gifts and souvenirs, toys, wine and spirits, home improvement, jewelry, eyewear, footwear, consumer products, mass market retail, specialty retail, convenience stores, and numerous other product/retailer categories.