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For in-store navigation, the convenient finding of products in hardware and supermarkets via smartphone app, locandis is breaking new ground with the company InnoGreen. The technology is now available in LED lighting - with significant advantages for retailers.

Locandis and InnoGreen Introduce Indoor Navigation Based on LED Lights

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Innovation in in-store navigation: Searching for products in hardware or supermarkets can be very tedious. The ideal solution: enter the desired item into a search field on the app on your smartphone and conveniently navigate to it. The corresponding digital technology has already been impressively implemented by the company locandis and is constantly being developed. App-based digital customer cards with integrated product search and in-store navigation.

Practically free of charge for hardware stores

Until now, the technical effort for a comprehensive infrastructure of the necessary beacons was relatively high, explains Stefan Brinkhoff, CTO of locandis. With a now closed strategic partnership between locandis and InnoGreen, an innovative LED light manufacturer based in Heppenheim, significant relief is now available. Both companies have now presented a prototype in which these small Bluetooth transmitters are installed in InnoGreen’s LED lights. Some of the advantages: the additional effort for the installation of the beacons is eliminated, the power supply of the beacons is ensured via the lighting, very low maintenance effort. This means that a hardware store can be equipped for in-store navigation practically free of charge, says InnoGreen Managing Director Olaf Tieben. “In August of this year, we will present a first hardware store where the new system is installed.”

Effective: Combine in-store navigation with location-based marketing

From a business and marketing perspective, in-store navigation is attractive. Especially for retailers with complex assortments and areas from approx. 3000 sqm. locandis customer projects demonstrate the resulting additional sales with more relaxed, longer staying customers. “We expect that the locandis in-store navigation based on InnoGreen lights will pay for itself and be self-supporting from the second year onwards”, says Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof. The CEO of locandis also points to the lucrative combination of in-store navigation with location-based marketing campaigns: “This is an important revenue driver that further improves the business balance sheet.”

Links:

Here you can learn more about the topic of Location Based Marketing

Studies on the topic:
– Location-based Marketing: The willingness to pay for push messages on the customer’s smartphone
– The use of traditional and digital customer cards in retail, system catering and tourism

Christian Wigger, owner of several Hagebaumarkt stores in the Neumünster area, was able to convince himself of the effectiveness and reliable functioning of the innovative Location Based Marketing technology during an impressive live demonstration.

Location Based Marketing: Impressive Live Demo in Hagebaumarkt

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Personalized advertising messages on the customer’s smartphone, directly on the shelf in the store: Location Based Marketing (LBM) is one of the big trends in marketing, says Hans-Christian Riekhof, marketing professor at PFH Private University of Göttingen. The advantages are clear to Riekhof: “With Location Based Marketing, stationary retail in particular reaches its customers where they are particularly receptive to advertising. At the shelf, with the intention to buy, the customer is interested in the product and its applications. Location-based campaigns delivered to the smartphone have a very high advertising effectiveness.”

Christian Wigger, owner of several Hagebaumarkt stores in the Neumünster area, was able to convince himself of the effectiveness and reliable functioning of the innovative technology during an impressive live demonstration of a Location Based Marketing action. Stefan Brinkhoff, managing partner of locandis GmbH from Hamburg, had prepared the demo in a Hagebaumarkt in Neumünster with his team. Wigger had invited several entrepreneur colleagues from the Hagebau environment to participate in this event. The participants installed the locandis app on their smartphone. In the hardware store, personalized campaigns were then delivered to them directly at the shelf and at action placements.

Up to 80 percent of customers can be reached – but they need to be introduced to the topic

Wigger was enthusiastic and is now planning a real test phase. “It is impressive how reliably the Beacon technology works in combination with the app today and how appealing the campaigns were implemented”, Christian Wigger summarizes. “We will definitely deal with it and aim for a real test over 12 months.” The indoor navigation will follow in the second step, which will greatly simplify the product search in the hardware store.

According to locandis CEO Stefan Brinkhoff, the sales effect of LBM is almost always underestimated. “In our experience, up to 80 percent of customers can be reached.” However, customers need to be introduced to the topic and explained the benefits if they are to activate Bluetooth and give permission to send coupons and other benefits.

“Building a direct dialogue with my customers who are currently in my store with a digital customer card as an app is the future of stationary retail”, says Professor Riekhof.

Photo: pexels.com

Yuqian Xu, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois, conducted a study on "The Impact of Mobile Payment Channel on Consumer Consumption: Evidence from Alipay" in China with Anindya Ghose and Binqing Xiao. The results are interesting in several respects.

Influencing customer behavior with mobile payment solutions

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Yuqian Xu, Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois, conducted a study on “The Impact of Mobile Payment Channel on Consumer Consumption: Evidence from Alipay” in China with Anindya Ghose and Binqing Xiao. “These research results are particularly relevant because locandis offers digital customer cards that include a payment function in addition to location-based content and coupon campaigns”, explains pricing expert Prof. Dr. Hans Christian Riekhof, co-managing director of locandis GmbH, a company specializing in digital customer cards and location-based marketing.

Here are the key findings of the study:

  • After the introduction of mobile payments in China, the total frequency of transactions increased by more than 23% on average.
  • The adoption of mobile payment is associated with an increase in so-called “hedonistic” shopping motives. This could be loosely translated as impulse buying.
  • Mobile payment has the greatest influence on products that are associated with low costs or prices and are purchased at high frequency.

The summary of the key findings can be read at the following link:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181129114134.htm

The original study can be downloaded here:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3270523

Photo: locandis GmbH

 

Dissatisfaction with the solutions currently on the market has led the company Locandis from Göttingen to develop its own Beacons, optimally adapted to the company's own backend. This topic was now picked up by Locationinsider, the online magazine for digital change.

Locationinsider: Locandis introduces new Beacons

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Dissatisfaction with the solutions currently on the market has led the company Locandis from Göttingen to develop its own Beacons. These are also optimally adapted to the company’s own backend. This topic was now picked up by Locationinsider, the online magazine for digital change.

The magazine continues to write: Locandis’ customers include Peek&Cloppenburg among others. For its customers, the company has implemented projects in the field of Location Based Services. Via Beacons, customers in the store are sent coupons and product-related content to their smartphones. This is intended to increase attention and directly set purchase impulses. A dialogue with the customer is achieved in the form of the digital customer card developed by Locandis.

So far, the Beacons available on the market have been used for the projects. But the company was dissatisfied with their performance and therefore had Beacons manufactured according to its own specifications. These are characterized by an optimized antenna layout, which allows a more precise signal transmission. Especially larger Beacon networks benefit from the comprehensive illumination for a more precise in-store navigation.

The Beacons are BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) compliant and support the Apple iBeacon protocol. Since the Beacons were also specified with regard to the company’s own backend, they automatically report there if the functionality should be limited or the battery status becomes critical. However, this should be rather rare, as the installed battery is supposed to last 5 years.

About Locationinsider
https://locationinsider.de/locandis-stellt-neue-beacons-vor/

Information about the company Locandis
www.locandis.de

 

 

The GFM News reports on the app-based digital customer card from locandis. It now includes a Product Finder, which functions as an in-store search engine. This is intended to save customers the search for an employee when they cannot find a product.

GFM News: locandis turns digital customer card into an in-store search engine

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The app-based digital customer card from locandis now includes a Product Finder, which functions as an in-store search engine. This is intended to save customers the search for an employee when they cannot find a product.

Customers enter the desired product in the app and are then guided to the correct shelf via in-store navigation. The system is already being tested in a self-service department store. Stefan Brinkhoff, CTO of locandis, says: “We have found that the Product Finder significantly increases the use of the digital customer card in the store: customers need this form of orientation and support. Of course, this only works if the system is extremely precise – the location is determined to within 1 m in a 6,000 sqm market.”

locandis’ digital customer card offers high accuracy in search

The app uses sensor fusion for this: several sensors, which on their own have no predictive power, are used for location determination and navigation. “This technology is the basis for Real Time Targeted Promotions”, adds Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof, marketing professor at PFH Göttingen. “If retailers know what customers are looking for and where they are moving in the store, targeted purchasing impulses can be set via push notifications and couponing. Logical zones can be defined in the store that have high predictive power.”

 

Link to the medium:
www.gfm-nachrichten.de

More information about locandis:
www.locandis.de

Location-based Marketing Technologies – which have potential? An interview with locandis CTO Stefan Brinkhoff:
LbM Technologies – which have potential?

 

Quickly read the news, check emails, search for a restaurant - as tempting as public WiFi hotspots may be for users, they can quickly become a serious threat to all data. In an interview, locandis CTO Stefan Brinkhoff explains how to protect your data.

Public WiFi – When the Person at the Next Table is Reading Along

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Quickly check some news, reply to an email and search for the nearest restaurant for lunch break – public WiFi hotspots offer a convenient way to get free internet access in many places, all over the world. But as tempting as this free internet access may initially be for users, it can quickly become a serious threat to all data.

Stefan Brinkhoff is aware of the problems that popular WiFi hotspots bring with them. The experienced e-commerce consultant for medium-sized companies built websites and developed online shops in his youth. Anna-Lina Köhler, a student at the Private University of Applied Sciences Göttingen (PFH) who is dealing with the WiFi issue, met the knowledgeable co-founder and CTO of locandis for a conversation.

Anna-Lina Köhler: What are the basic advantages of public WiFi?

Stefan Brinkhoff: In general, public WiFi offers a good opportunity to save data volume. Especially in buildings where data reception is limited and perhaps even below the “Edge area”, a fast internet access according to the user’s requirements is advantageous.

Anna-Lina Köhler: How widespread are public WiFi hotspots today?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Even though the spread of public WiFi hotspots in Germany is still relatively low compared to international standards, the communication network is continuously being expanded nationally. So you can expect that there will be more and more free WiFi hotspots in the future.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Why is it that more and more WiFi is being set up or offered in public spaces? Who is the driver?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Even today, there is still the problem of adequate data speed in many cases, especially inside buildings. There can be a damping effect, so that fast bandwidths, which are needed for certain applications on the digital device and ultimately demanded by the user, do not exist as standard. The offer and the constant spread of the use of public WiFi is therefore fundamentally positive.

With WiFi, the data is on the presentation plate

Anna-Lina Köhler: What dangers or security concerns should be considered when it comes to public WiFi?

Stefan Brinkhoff: In public networks, the data is basically on the “presentation plate”. Any other user surfing in the same public WLAN network can theoretically view the data packets that the digital terminal device sends or receives, as the data is transmitted unencrypted between device and network. This problem tends to exist at all nodes on the internet. If you share your WiFi with other users, the hacker only needs to sit at the next table to then exploit the vulnerabilities of the unencrypted data.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Do you have an example?

Stefan Brinkhoff: A conceivable and quite practical example would be the use of public WiFi hotspots in hotel lobbies by business travelers. Whether it’s just to quickly send business emails or actually to work with internal company data, in the worst case these critical information are shared with all other hotel guests. All information that the digital terminal device exchanges with the public network can therefore ultimately be threatened.

Anna-Lina Köhler: How can such an attack on one’s own data typically work?

Stefan Brinkhoff: The so-called “Honeypot technique” is common. This means that a second hotspot with the identical name is broadcast next to the correct public network. So the same WiFi name is thrown out, so that the device cannot differentiate between a real and a fake network. The attacker thus positions himself between the network and the provider and thus gains control. Even though many cell phones and apps nowadays rely on internal SSL encryption, the hacker can still find out who is being communicated with and which pages are being used and thus create a real user profile.

Install VPN tools and always perform updates

Anna-Lina Köhler: How can the user best protect himself from such dangers? What security precautions are there?

Stefan Brinkhoff: The best way to protect yourself is to set up a VPN connection in public WiFi, which then encrypts the data and makes it no longer attackable from the outside. For this, it is usually enough to install a simple VPN tool. Also, all updates should be installed regularly to keep the operating system up to date and to offer hackers a minimal attack surface.

Anna-Lina Köhler: And what can users do if their data has already been hacked?

Stefan Brinkhoff: In such a case, it is important that all active sessions in the accounts are ended and that work is not continued on the identified hardware under any circumstances. It is also advisable to change all passwords. Free WiFi hotspots are basically a positive and practical thing, for example to briefly check the weather. If you really want to make sure that online banking data or company data remains internal, you should not edit this data in public hotspots for safety reasons – and share it with the person at the next table.

Stefan Brinkhoff, locandis founder, in conversation with Anna-Lina Köhler

 

Photo: Caleb Minear/Unsplash

Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof, an expert in International Marketing, Pricing and founder of locandis, a startup specialized in Location Based Marketing, provides deeper insights into this exciting question.

Location based Marketing – a new paradigm in digital marketing?

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Is Location based Marketing really a new paradigm in digital marketing? For answers to this exciting question, Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof is the perfect contact. He is the sole shareholder and managing director of UNICconsult Strategieentwicklung GmbH, also a professor of International Marketing at the PFH Private University of Göttingen, organizer of the Göttingen Marketing Day and publisher of books on topics such as strategy development, personnel development and retail. In addition, he is the founder of locandis, a startup that specializes in Location Based Marketing.

In an interview with Anna-Lina Köhler, who dealt with Location Based Marketing as a student at the PFH Private University of Göttingen, the marketing specialist provides interesting insights.

Anna-Lina Köhler: What do you think of the statement that online is the marketing channel of the future?

Professor Riekhof: This is only partially true in this form. Of course, traditional media will continue to lose importance – even if they cannot be imagined out of the media landscape in the coming years. But what is important is that the online channel is supplemented and also replaced by the mobile channel. People can be reached everywhere, the smartphone is a constant companion and thus also a decisive communication channel – if you master the rules of the game.

Anna-Lina Köhler: The term “relevance” is increasingly used these days. What does this mean in connection with Location based Marketing?

Professor Riekhof: In our empirical projects on Location Based Marketing, we have been able to demonstrate that push messages on the customer’s smartphone attract high interest and undivided attention when they are related to the location where people are currently located. For example, at the documenta 2017 in Kassel, we delivered information about certain works of art directly at the object – with very high opening rates for the message. The right message in the right context and at the right place: this is the formula with which relevance can be demonstrably generated.

Marketing will be even more data-driven in the future

Anna-Lina Köhler: What role does Location Based Marketing play in the marketing of the future?

Professor Riekhof: I assume that we can speak of a new paradigm for marketing here. Marketing will be even more data-driven in the future than it is today. What we already have are customer-related data, e.g. from the CRM system. This is where classic target group-based targeting comes in. In addition, we have learned from Amazon (which companies like the Otto Group of course always knew) that past purchasing behavior is an extremely reliable predictor of future purchasing behavior. That’s why Amazon is superior to Google in the long run: Amazon knows the purchases, Google only knows the searches. But what is now being added is a third data source: location-related information allows setting up targeting that opens up the spatial dimension to marketing.

Anna-Lina Köhler: What do you conclude from this?

Professor Riekhof: My personal assessment is that we have information here with very high predictive power. Where I am in the shopping mall, which areas and shops in the city center are of particular interest to me, is of course highly exciting for targeting.

Anna-Lina Köhler: How useful is Instore Navigation actually? Can’t the staff simply serve as a contact person for the customer?

Professor Riekhof: Instore Navigation makes no sense if you run an ice cream shop or a lottery acceptance point. But think about the situation in a hardware store: find a contact person who tells you where the dowels and seals for the bathroom fittings are. Instore Navigation helps enormously to find the products. We have found in our LBM projects that Instore Navigation significantly increases the acceptance and use of digital customer cards. And ultimately, it relieves the staff in retail if customers are supported in their product search via the digital channel.

LBM with WLAN alone too imprecise for localization

Anna-Lina Köhler: Wouldn’t it theoretically be enough to simply send the customer an SMS via WLAN in stores?

Professor Riekhof: Some retail groups make it a bit too easy for themselves. They install a WLAN accessible to customers in the stores, and then they theoretically have the possibility to send push messages to these customers in the store. In my view, this is not even Location based Marketing 1.0. Because the localization precision with which the campaigns are delivered at the right shelf is simply insufficient. If I’m standing at the red wine shelf, I don’t want a 15% coupon for dog food.
And a second aspect is very important to me personally: WLAN-based Location based Marketing cannot deliver campaigns to defined target groups. This is only possible if I as a consumer have downloaded the digital customer card, have registered and have given permission to receive coupons. Retailers should make sure that they do not advertise typically female products to men and vice versa.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Can the advertising effect be measured by Location Based Marketing, if so how?

Professor Riekhof: This is a very good question, because it focuses on the core of the topic. Location Based Marketing is extremely measurable: I can determine whether push messages were delivered at all, whether they were opened, whether coupons were redeemed, whether cross-selling campaigns were successful and whether customers stayed in the store longer. This goes as far as the economic effects: each individual campaign is completely transparent in terms of its costs, the effects on results of possible price discounts and the effect on sales. Comparable transparency in this form is only available in online retail. The effect of the large marketing budgets in traditional media is not measurable in this precision at all.

Professor Riekhof, locandis founder, in conversation with Anna-Lina Köhler

In the interview, Stefan Brinkhoff, founder of locandis, the startup for Location based Marketing Solutions, presents some of the essential LbM technologies and assesses their potential.

LbM Technologies: Which has Potential?

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Location based Marketing (LbM) is one of the marketing keywords of the future. The potential of location-based technologies is increasing, as is interest in them. There are now various technical options for localization. However, these also differ in their possibilities: some LbM technologies clearly stand out from the standards of others.

Anna-Lina Köhler, who is dealing with LBM as part of a study assignment at the PFH Private University of Göttingen, met a specialist in the field: Stefan Brinkhoff, founder of locandis, the startup for Location based Marketing Solutions. In the interview, he presents some of the essential LbM technologies and assesses their potential.

Anna-Lina Köhler: How can the word “Location” be defined in terms of Location based Marketing?

Stefan Brinkhoff: The basis of Location based Marketing are, as the name suggests, location-based services. There are very different options for determining the location. Basically, however, a distinction is made between outdoor and indoor technologies.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Which methods can be assigned to the outdoor technologies on this basis?

Stefan Brinkhoff: “The so-called Cell Tower are among the outdoor technologies. The localization via these Cell Tower is mainly used by providers such as Telekom or O2. The mobile phone provider can recognize the position of the smartphone through the customer’s permanent registration in his network within a certain framework and thus send him a corresponding SMS. No app is required to deliver this notification, but the mobile phone provider is also only able to transmit simple text messages. Although work is currently being done in the USA to support Rich Text formats, this is very unlikely to be used by providers like Apple.

Anna-Lina Köhler: How well do these Cell Towers work?

Stefan Brinkhoff: A very clear disadvantage of the Cell Tower based location is that due to technical requirements the localization accuracy is sometimes very limited – there can be deviations of several hundred meters. In rural environments, there are even inaccuracies of several kilometers. In the best case, in urban areas, it is a localization accuracy that “only” deviates by 500 meters. I’m not quite sure if you should still call that Location based Marketing.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Are there technical possibilities to increase the accuracy of the localization?

Stefan Brinkhoff: The precision can basically be significantly increased by using an app, as a GPS localization function is used here. The standard APIs of the smartphone manufacturers manage to determine the current position of the user with an accuracy of 50 to 100 meters with an app running in the background. Unfortunately, however, it must be noted again and again that the localization function is usually not sufficient even in urban areas.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Why is that?

Stefan Brinkhoff: If there were a nationwide WiFi infrastructure in Germany, it would also be possible to locate the customer without an app via a WiFi-localized function that also uses trilateration methods. But until that happens, it will probably take a few more years, so that today WiFi localization is mainly used in the interior of buildings such as in shopping malls. Here, anonymized heat maps of the running behavior of individual customers can be recorded. However, this method is not suitable for individual customer contact – this is very important.

Partially questionable methods in LbM technology

Anna-Lina Köhler: So we are in the area of indoor technologies. What other methods are also in use here?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Furthermore, there is the magnetic field measurement indoors. Here, an attempt is made to exploit the specific characteristics of a building in relation to its earth’s magnetic field in order to locate a customer. With this method, the building is measured using “fingerprinting”, and then a localization can be carried out via the magnetometer of the smartphone. The disadvantage here, however, is that the accuracy of the localization is often insufficient, as the conditions of the earth’s magnetic field often change due to various interference factors. Another localization method, which is highly questionable in Germany from a data protection point of view, is localization via inaudible audio frequencies, which are broadcast via the retailer’s sound system and processed by the smartphone’s microphone. Small Bluetooth transmitters, the so-called Beacons, have also been essential for Location based Marketing for some time. They work with Bluetooth signals and are supported by both Apple and Google across all operating systems.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Which of these technologies do you think is the most promising in the future?

Stefan Brinkhoff: In my view, the Beacons are currently the most promising technology in this area. A decisive advantage lies in the fact that the procedure is “permission-based”. The customer therefore actively gives his consent to the localization. In addition, the localization function with a precision of about 1.5 meters is significantly above the standards of the other LbM technologies. Since the procedure works most reliably via an app on the customer’s smartphone, a customer approach is made possible that can take place individually, situationally, at the right time, at the right place and above all personalized.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Where is the maximum beacon density? Can the radii overlap, or should this be avoided as much as possible?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Basically, there is an overlap of radio signals, especially in small rooms. This often happens simply due to reflections. Overlays cannot be ruled out. But they are also not to be seen as dramatic.

Effects on the smartphone’s battery consumption

Anna-Lina Köhler: For many LbM technologies such as Beacon technology, users are often required to have the Bluetooth function of their smartphone switched on in connection with an app. This often affects the battery consumption of the smartphone. How is it with the locandis technology?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Yes, we have also heard from some customers that certain LBM solutions drive up battery consumption a lot. At locandis, we use, among other things, a so-called “silent tracking”. Our solutions are implemented in such a way that even with necessary Bluetooth use, the battery performance is not impaired. This is also due to the fact that the app does not have to be open to fulfill its purpose.

Anna-Lina Köhler: In the area of indoor localization, Philips offers a light-based solution for the localization function. Why do you think Beacons are still the better solution?

Stefan Brinkhoff: The infrastructure costs are completely different with Philips’ light-based solution. While Beacons can simply be attached to the ceiling, the entire lighting system must be replaced for Philips’ indoor localization. In addition to the high cost difference, there is also the significant disadvantage that indoor navigation with the light-based solution only works if the app on the customer’s smartphone is also open. This is not required with Beacon technology, and the app can also be closed. We assume that this has a significant influence on customer acceptance.

Anna-Lina Köhler: Finally, the question, what importance do you attach to Location based Marketing and its technologies for the future?

Stefan Brinkhoff: Location based Marketing is becoming increasingly important. Because advertising, especially for the younger generation, is relevant when it is broadcast in the right context. And this is made possible by Location based Marketing technologies such as Beacons.

 

Stefan Brinkhoff, locandis founder, in conversation with Anna-Lina Köhler