New Rug Point Of Sale Kiosk Now Available

Furniture World Magazine

A new self-service, interactive kiosk designed exclusively for rug point-of-sale purposes is now available, thus providing home furnishing stores, hardware stores and specialty retailers which sell rugs with the ability to showcase thousands of types in less than ten square feet of space, Houston-based Horizon USA, which designs self-service kiosks for a variety of applications, offers the computer-equipped, dual-screen Rug Kiosk as a free-standing, tabletop or wall-mounted unit. Each also comes with an exterior sign "wrap" customized for each retailer, to further entice shoppers. "One of the biggest challenges a home furnishing or hardware store faces when selling rugs is simply dealing with the physical display >space they take up," says Gary M. Seline. president of Horizon USA. "With a kiosk, a store can expand its rug selections from five to five thousand in an instant - and probably do so in smaller space." The lower screen of the unit serves as a "virtual showroom" with samples custom-categorized according to style, color, shape and other retailer specifications. Customers simply sit at the color-correct, touch-screen monitor to view and print an item. Customers also can use the lower screen to click on links to related websites focusing on home design. They also can view an unlimited number of photos of homes to pick up new design ideas. The upper screen can be used for video feeds from home tours, store commercials, sponsor ads and the like. As an optional upgrade, the Rug Kiosk from Horizon USA can be equipped with software which allows customers to insert a photo of a particular room into the unit. The kiosk scans the photo and brings it up on the screen to allow a customer to cut and paste a rug into the scanned picture. Customers also can save their scanned photos on the kiosk hard drive for future return visits. According to Seline, the company's kiosk has been well received by home furnishing retailers. Cort Furniture, for example, is installing a unit at a showroom in New Jersey. As a result, the store plans to reduce its rug display space at the location from 20,000 to 8,000 square feet. Retailers can contact Horizon USA at (713) 747-6433 for more information on the company's Rug Kiosk. Or, they can visit the company's website, www.horizonusa.net, to see its full range of kiosks.