Products always saleable with Virtual Shelf

A large product range, which has to be available at all times

With over 30,000 products in the shop, there is something for every fish or garden lover at the Pelckmans garden centres. However, the entire Product Range cannot be shown since floor space is not always available for exceptional products like the many different types of garden sheds. For this reason, Pelckmans supplemented its range in the garden centres with an online webshop at an early stage. By now more than 53,000 products are offered online, and they can be picked up at one of the garden centres in Turnhout, Lommel or Rijkevorsel by means of Click & Collect.

"Virtual shelf”

Pelckmans would prefer to show all online products to the shoppers that visit the garden centres. And with so many online products it is understandable that setting up the floor is a challenge because there simply isn't enough space to exhibit all the products.

That is why the creation of a "virtual shelf" was needed to give customers direct access to the entire product range. A tailor-made BLUE FIRE self-service kiosk was created by Pan Oston that runs specially developed software by Pelckmans. With the self-service kiosks, their online offer is made accessible on the spot at any of the garden centres. In addition, the kiosks form an information point where stock can be viewed by scanning a product. The customer can then place an order that can be picked up using the Click & Collect system.

"Thanks to Pan Oston's experience in installing Retail concepts, they are the perfect partner to successfully integrate an omnichannel concept such as virtual shelf" Tom Pelckmans, (co-)owner

Training staff

Successfully integrating an omnichannel concept such as "virtual shelf" is more likely to succeed if the staff can offer support in introducing it. At Pelckmans, they understand that very well and that is why they have introduced staff training for the interactive kiosks. In this way, the kiosks can be used to provide extra service to customers.

Digitisation

At Pelckmans, the integration of an interactive kiosk is part of the digitisation process within the company. Right now the kiosk is still printing a receipt when placing an order. In the future, this will have to be paper-free and will function for 100% by connecting it to a customer account and an app. This is not only more environmentally friendly but also provides important customer data that can be used to improve the (personal) offer for the customer.