Retailers face a challenge: They're working harder than ever to offer the right products, to the right customers, in the right way. For us, it's an opportunity. Their challenge relies heavily on the use of graphics, so much so that point-of-purchase printing has become one of the healthiest sectors within the printing industry.

　　Now they're going a step farther, integrating in-store and online experiences, and we can expect the trend to grow. As retailers try to merge the best of the brick-and-mortar buying experience with the best of virtual shopping, expect to see more kiosks and dynamic display panels together in stores.

　　With the trend, we can also expect retailers to carefully manage all their graphics, whether images are delivered as static graphics or dynamic displays. The images, from start to finish, will be essential to maintaining a cohesive brand. And with that, plan on retailers asking a single vendor to coordinate all graphics, static and dynamic. (One effective response to the request will be value chain networks of specialty graphic imagers and dynamic display producers.)
Here's a national example of what in-store/online retail integration could look like: According to USAToday, J.C. Penney has invested $1.4 billion in point-of-sale kiosks customers and clerks use to place orders via the J.C. Penney Web site. With these kiosks in place, Mike Boylson, J.C. Penney's Chief Marketing Officer, predicts that by 2008, Web sales will account for $2 billion of the retailer's approximately $18 billion in annual sales.

　　J.C. Penney recently received a great deal of media attention by opening its first "experience" store on Times Square in New York City. This temporary store used Internet kiosks and strong environmental graphics, but limited inventory, to create an exciting shopping experience. Walking into the store was described as "entering an advertisement." By combing the right images, produced in the right way, J.C. Penney successfully created a buzz about its virtual sales experience.

　　It's clear that producing static images for retail environmental graphics, point-of sale displays and promotional efforts will continue to be great markets for SGIA members. Dynamic display will add another dimension to the retail experience. But precisely how it will fit into the scheme of things remains to be seen.

　　Several SGIA members, leaders in the retail graphics sector, are weighing if, and how, they should add dynamic display to their products and services offerings. While it's easy to see how the technology could be used in the retail environment, finding a workable financial model has been a challenge. Do advertisers pay for time like a TV advertisement? If so, who manages the scheduling, billing, etc? What about store messages such as instructions or in-store promotions that are not billable to an advertiser? We have a great deal to learn as these new technologies are brought into the marketplace.

　　In the meantime, SGIA will continue to research and report on new technologies such as dynamic display. We'll even showcase dynamic display in a special area of the SGIA '06 (Las Vegas, September 26-29) expo hall. Be sure to attend SGIA '06 and visit SGIA.org often to stay on the informed edge.