Vipera Plc (LON:VIP) Chief Financial Officer Martin Perrin caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their partnership with Philips Lighting
Q1: I see that Vipera just announced the partnership with Philips Lighting to work with them on its indoor positioning system. What exactly is it that Vipera will be doing in the project?
A1: We are integrating advanced features of their lighting system with our proximity marketing solutions, that to say that Philips have a new, highly accurate indoor positioning system which has a great enabling technology for our mobile systems offering. It offers 30cm accuracy plus orientation so we’re very pleased to be selected to work with them on this.
Q2: In the announcement, you talk about your mApp, can you tell me what that this and what it will do for consumers?
A2: Yes, now major retailers generally provide consumers with an existing online presence but our solution augments that with in-store solutions that is mobile-based. So, our solution is particularly useful for a visitor to a large store where one goes to browse around and find out more about products and need information. So, our solution can help you find products in the store, in other words where in the store it is, what floor, whereabouts it is, it can help you get information about products and you can scan a brochure and get information about the product. A clever aspect of this is that the system can detect where you are in a store and what you’re interested in and it can deem relevant offers for example, you’ve been standing in front of a big TV for 5 minutes, it can pop you an offer on it. Last, but not least, our mobile solution looks to make purchasing as easy as possible so for example, you can go to click and collect, click and have delivered, online payments or contactless payment at the checkout till. Also, you don’t have to leave your Bluetooth on to use it.
Q3: So, what will it do for the retailer?
A3: Well, Vipera are helping a retailer overcome a problem of showrooming where customers visit the store to view and test products but then go and buy them online, we’re actually doing this as part of a broader integrated customer engagement solution. This solution has been on trial in over 100 stores in Europe and is not only generating significant incremental sales but also reducing the waiting time at tills and indeed reducing the frustration felt when customers can’t find the staff to ask questions about the product.
