Federated Department Stores Inc. (Cincinnati) will begin selling iPods and iPod accessories this fall in more than 180 Macy's stores across the country. The merchandise will be sold from 28-square-foot, self-serve kiosks designed and built by Zoom Systems (San Francisco), an authorized Apple reseller.
The mini-stores, to be called Zoom @ Macy's, resemble oversized vending machines, with products displayed behind glass. Customers select what they want to buy by punching their preferences into a touchscreen, and a robotic arm retrieves the desired items and drops them into a delivery bin. Payment is made by swiping a credit card.
The agreement with Zoom was announced by Federated chairman, president and ceo Terry Lundgren at his company's annual meeting on Friday. “You've heard us talk about wanting to do a better job bringing the most-wanted, upscale consumer products back into our stores,” Lundgren said. “Currently, that means offering such items as iPods and iPods accessories. This agreement to use Zoom's interactive, robotics-driven kiosk provides us with a fresh and fun model for selling that merchandise.
“We began testing this concept last December by installing two of these mini-stores at our Macy's store at Union Square, San Francisco, and the consumer response has been very favorable,” said Lundgren.
In addition to Apple merchandise, consumer electronics items from such brands as Sony and Motorola will be test-sold from the machines as the company rolls out the Zoom @ Macy's program later this year.