Health Info Kiosks Generate Solid ROI: Study

FEBRUARY 28, 2006 -- PORTLAND, Ore. -- Information-hungry consumers are generating 677 percent ROI for retailers deploying information kiosks from Healthnotes, a provider of healthy-living retail marketing solutions, according to an independent controlled study. Read More

Health & Nutrition Information Kiosks

The information-providing kiosk set gets plenty of knocks from its big brothers, those muscular transaction-based self-service machines that deliver powerful ROI statistics. Healthnotes, Inc. is proving that it’s not always about the numbers.

Information, Please

By Rick Redding

The information-providing kiosk set gets plenty of knocks from its big brothers, those muscular transaction-based self-service machines that deliver powerful ROI statistics. Healthnotes, Inc. is proving that it’s not always about the numbers.

More than 6,000 kiosks that do nothing but provide information have been installed at a variety of supermarket, health food, vitamin and medical locations. This story of soft ROI, now eight years old, is one of amazing success. Its sales pitch is that the company believes the kiosks lead to more sales. It believes that the kiosks allow staff to focus on other tasks, that the burden of providing product education for staff is lessened. Most kiosks get used by 20-30 customers per day, people seeking trusted information on pharmaceutical products, food, and lifestyle choices. The problem is there aren’t many numbers to prove it.

HNI is working on the numbers, though. The company claims a yet-unpublished study shows that 40 percent of Healthnotes kiosk users made a purchase based on the information obtained at the kiosk.

Maybe, though, numbers aren't a problem for the Oregon company, which this week unveiled a new version of its star product. The EasyAnswers Touchscreen Kiosk, the Low Profile, is available in nine steel enclosures with varying graphics. The kiosk provider is KIOSK InformationSystems. Healthnotes has kiosks in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Low-Profile Kiosk is a plug-and-play unit preconfigured to run Healthnotes applications. Standing five-feet tall, it’s available in red, green or blue. It includes engaging graphics to grab customers’ attention and motivate them to use the kiosk to find answers to their health, food, and lifestyle questions. Graphics are customized for Healthy Living, Food and Recipes, or Pharmacy.

“Over the past eight years of helping retailers deploy information kiosks in-store, we’ve found that one of the key challenges they face is designing a kiosk that’s engaging and easy-to-use for their customers,” said Dr. Skye Lininger, Healthnotes president and CEO. “With our new Low-Profile Kiosks, HNI has leveraged our years of design expertise to address these challenges and are proud to offer an easy, affordable way for retailers to tailor a kiosk to their stores.”

The power of information is the driving force behind the brand. In a speech being delivered this week to the Natural Products Expo East in Washington, D.C., Lininger will focus his remarks on the power of information in retail. By providing customers with information on complex topics, Lininger believes retailers using Healthnotes devices have an advantage in the competitive marketplace.

“There will never be fewer people expecting ‘information at their fingertips’ – in store and offline – than there are today,” he says.

Lininger advises retailers to seek out reliable, credible information for stores. And he says that information should be presented in a way that drives sales. He said 35-40 percent of customers in a recent study made a purchase decision based on information from a kiosk.

That’s the kind of statistic that has motivated seven of the top 10 supermarket chains in install Healthnotes kiosks. The information that Healthnotes provides is generally more complex than store employees can know or provide. Content is written for Healthnotes by a team of medical doctors, pharmacists, naturopathic physicians, chiropractors, and dieticians.

And Lininger maintains that customers are willing and able to use touchscreen kiosks to obtain this complex information during their shopping experience.

Finally, Lininger drives home the point that the time for content kiosks is the present.

“Two big ‘waves’ are hitting the shore at the same time in our history,” he says in his Natural Products Expo speech. “The Internet is only ten years old, the Boomers are reaching age 50 at the rate of 4.2 million per year. These two trends are the future dirvers for all businesses.”

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This case study was generated by Kioskcom

Health and Nutrition Kiosks

Healthnotes Introduces New Products

[Editors Note: visit the Products Expo West and see two new kiosks in the Healthnotes booth which KIOSK created.]

Healthnotes Introduces Two New Products for Health Food Stores and Supermarkets at Natural Products Expo West; Executives Featured in Two Seminars

Natural Products Expo West Booth #1816

PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2005--

Interactive demonstrations of the enhanced Web products and new Retailer Recipes option available at Healthnotes booth #1816

To help health food stores and supermarkets offer their customers an engaging, information-rich shopping experience online and in-store, Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) today announced the launch of its enhanced QuickStart Web products and the new Retailer Recipes option for touchscreen kiosks and retailers' Web sites.

QuickStart Standard and QuickStart Premium, part of Healthnotes EasyIntegration online delivery options, offer retailers quick, easy ways to integrate Healthnotes content throughout their sites, even with limited technical expertise. Both QS Standard and QS Premium include new integration tools called Graphical Content Links: prepackaged links that combine engaging graphics with a "teaser" line to capture consumers' attention and drive them into targeted Healthnotes content. GCLs can be placed on multiple pages of a retailer's site to offer greater access to Healthnotes content, enhancing the user experience and increasing usage.

The new Retailer Recipes option allows a retailer to offer their recipe collection integrated with Healthnotes health, food, and nutrition information -- online and in-store. The custom retailer-branded touchscreen kiosk and Web applications add a retailer's recipes into standard Healthnotes categories and link them to a food encyclopedia. In addition, retailers can have HNI calculate Nutrition Facts and add wine pairings to their recipes to make them even more valuable to shoppers.

Attendees of Natural Products Expo West, March 18-20, 2005 in Anaheim, Calif., can demo the new Healthnotes products in the HNI booth (#1816). Attendees can also demo one of the Healthnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen Kiosks in the Store of the Future on the show floor.

HNI Executives Featured in Two Expo West Seminars

On Saturday, March 19 at 12:30 p.m., Michael Peet, managing director for Healthnotes UK Ltd, will lead a panel discussion with two HNI customers on the topic, "Establishing Your Web Site as a Community Resource." Representatives from Seattle Super Supplements and Boots Herbals will share their experiences of building effective Web sites that offer value and bring more customers to their stores. On Sunday, March 20 at 11:45 a.m., Skye Lininger, HNI president and CEO, will participate on a panel discussing "Using Store Technology to Create Efficiency and Increase Sales."

About Healthnotes Inc. Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) is the premier provider of reliable, easy-to-use health, food, and lifestyle information for Web sites and interactive touchscreen kiosks. Used by leading supermarkets, pharmacies, and health food stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Healthnotes(R) Retail Solutions empowers consumers to make educated decisions and drives product sales -- online and in-store. HNI also generates Web applications that are licensed to e-commerce and health-related Internet sites worldwide. On the Web: www.healthnotes.com

Note to editors: HEALTHNOTES and FOODNOTES are registered trademarks of Healthnotes, Inc.

Contacts

Healthnotes, Inc.
Amy Myers, 503-234-4092
amym@healthnotes.com

HealthNotes Nutrition Kiosk

IN THE NEWS: Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) today announced the launch of the Foodnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen kiosk PORTLAND, Ore..April 28, 2004.To help supermarkets offer an interactive resource on food, nutrition, and recipes in-store, Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) today announced the launch of the Foodnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen kiosk. The kiosk was specifically designed for location in food departments, featuring food- and recipe-related graphics on the steel enclosure, and is configured to run one of the three Foodnotes applications from HNI (Foodnotes Grocery, Foodnotes Meat & Seafood, and Foodnotes Fresh Produce).

.Supermarkets are in a unique position to provide consumers with both the products and information they need to make healthy lifestyle choices,. stated Schuyler Lininger, HNI president and CEO. .Healthnotes is excited to offer supermarket retailers two versions of the EasyAnswers Touchscreen, one for food-related departments, such as produce or meat and seafood, and one for health-related departments, such as pharmacy. Both options help supermarkets provide an engaging, consumer-friendly resource in-store..

Attendees of the FMI Show, May 2.4, 2004 in Chicago, can see the new Foodnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen in the HNI booth (#976) on the main FMI Show floor. The kiosk will also be featured in the Produce for Better Health Foundation booth (#9000) at the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association Conference and Expo, co-located with the FMI Show.

In addition, the Healthnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen, featuring .Health & Wellness. graphics, will be included in the Healthy Living Pavilion (booth #862) on the main FMI Show floor.

The EasyAnswers Touchscreen kiosk, originally launched in January 2004, was designed specifically for retail use and features eye-catching visuals and built-in user instructions. The kiosk is a .plug-and-play. unit that is easy for retailers to install and maintain.

The three Foodnotes applications from HNI.Foodnotes Grocery, Foodnotes Meat & Seafood, and Foodnotes Fresh Produce.include comprehensive, easy-to-understand information on more than 450 foods, as well as nutrition, healthy eating, special diets, weight control, and more. All three applications also offer hundreds of tasty, healthy recipes that shoppers can print in-store free of charge.

Pricing and availability
The Healthnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen and Foodnotes EasyAnswers Touchscreen are available for purchase or lease through HNI. Custom colors and branding options are also available. The six different Healthnotes and Foodnotes kiosk applications require an annual software subscription. Pricing for both hardware and software varies depending on quantity purchased.

About Healthnotes Inc.
Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) is the premier provider of credible, easy-to-use health, food, and lifestyle information for in-store touchscreen kiosk, Web, and multi-channel initiatives. More than 6,500 supermarkets, pharmacies, and natural product stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom use Healthnotes Retail Solutions to provide consumers with practical healthy living information at the point of decision.online and in-store. Healthnotes also generates Web applications that are licensed to e-commerce and health-related Internet sites worldwide. On the Web: www.healthnotes.com

Note to editors: HEALTHNOTES is a registered trademark of Healthnotes Inc.

Healthnotes PR contact:
For more information, please contact:
Amy Garland.Healthnotes, Inc.
503-234-4092, amyg@healthnotes.com

KIOSK InformationSystems designs and manufactures touch screen, self-service kiosk solutions for retail, human resources, employee benefits, CRM, Wi-Fi, loyalty, gaming and many more self-service applications. With more than 28 standard kiosk models, custom models, turnkey vending units such as public internet terminals and photo kiosks, KIOSK has the largest self-service product and services line from which to choose.

Founded in 1993, KIOSK InformationSystems has more than 100 years of combined experience and is ISO 9001 and UL-listed certified. Retail kiosks, human resource and self-service solutions are a core competency. Major clients include Wal-Mart, U.S. Postal Service, McDonalds, Pepsi, the U.S. Government and Disney. For information about KIOSK products and services please visit www.kis-kiosk.com/digital, call KIOSK at 303-466-5471 or email pr@gokis.net.

Health and Nutrition Kiosk

KIOSK InformationSystems and Healthnotes Inc. Launch Consumer Health Kiosk for Retail Applications

KIOSK InformationSystems and Healthnotes Inc. Launch Consumer Health Kiosk for Retail Applications

LOUISVILLE, Colo., -- KIOSK InformationSystems (KIOSK) and Healthnotes Inc., a nationally-recognized leader in providing consumer information on health and lifestyle issues, have developed and launched an interactive kiosk system designed for supermarket, pharmacy and natural product store customers. Healthnotes branded the new kiosk the EasyAnswers Touchscreen and will sell it to retailers bundled with its kiosk software products, Healthnotes Healthy Living and Healthnotes Pharmacy.

Pennsylvania-based Clemens Family Markets is the first store to make the EasyAnswers Touchscreen available for its shoppers, incorporating the new kiosk in 20 of its 21 suburban Philadelphia locations.

Healthnotes Healthy Living and Healthnotes Pharmacy provide consumers with easy-to-understand, science-based information on health concerns, supplements, foods, nutrition, special diets, and weight control, as well as hundreds of recipes. Healthnotes Pharmacy also features over 2,000 patient education monographs (PEMs) on OTC and prescription medications. The articles, PEMs, and recipes can be printed directly from the kiosk.

"A growing consumer acceptance and use of kiosks is helping drive the introduction of these products in all facets of our lives," said Schuyler Lininger, HNI president and CEO. "Healthnotes is proud to team with KIOSK InformationSystems to offer retailers a sophisticated yet user-friendly kiosk system that they can use in-store to educate shoppers on healthy living information at the point of decision."

For additional information about KIOSK, Healthnotes, and the new kiosk services, visit www.kis-kiosk.com or www.healthnotes.com.

About Healthnotes Inc.
Healthnotes Inc. (HNI) is the premier provider of credible, easy-to-use health and lifestyle information for Web site and in-store touchscreen kiosk initiatives. More than 6,500 supermarkets, pharmacies, and natural product stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom use Healthnotes Retail Solutions to improve customer service, build loyalty, and increase sales. HNI also generates behind-the-counter applications that are licensed to e-commerce and health-related Internet sites worldwide.

About KIOSK
KIOSK InformationSystems designs and manufactures touch screen, self-service kiosk solutions for retail, human resources, employee benefits, CRM, Wi-Fi, loyalty, gaming and many more self-service applications. With more than 28 standard kiosk models, custom models, turnkey vending units such as public internet terminals and photo kiosks, KIOSK has the largest self-service product and services line from which to choose.

Founded in 1993, KIOSK InformationSystems has more than 100 years of combined experience and is ISO 9001 and UL-listed certified. Retail kiosks, human resource and self-service solutions are a core competency. Major clients include Wal-Mart, U.S. Postal Service, McDonalds, Pepsi, the U.S. Government and Disney. For information about KIOSK products and services please visit www.kis-kiosk.com, call KIOSK at 303-466-5471 or email pr@gokis.net.

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