The COVID-19 pandemic is rewriting all the existing rules of the retail industry. Up until the onset of the pandemic, fierce brand identification drove consumer buying patterns. And a big part of the in-store shopping experience was dependent on hands-on trials. But here we are, in the middle of a global catastrophe – with a shaken brand loyalty, newfound eagerness for contactless shopping, “Zoom-ready” fashion trends, and a totally turned over retail sector. The crisis has not only altered the retailers’ financial outlook for the year but their future direction as well.

Under such radical shifts in the sector, one asset that has rather proven to be indispensable for retail during and beyond the pandemic is – digital signage. The function of digital signage in the retail industry today is indeed expanding well beyond its traditional role. For instance, in the rapidly evolving customer landscape, with preferences like contactless retail increasingly coming to the fore, digital signage is offering a unique channel for retail businesses to engage with their customers. As the customers are growingly concerned about being in shared environments, digital signage is proving to be a vital tool inside retail stores in navigating in-store customer traffic by displaying store layout information while reducing employee-customer interactions. Furthermore, digital signage is aiding retailers today to disseminate critical health and safety content in real-time, regarding COVID-19 symptoms, PPE requirements, precautionary measures, and so on. On the whole, digital signage is substantially improving the employee and customer experience, a.k.a. retail experience.

“The role that digital signage is playing in today’s retail environment is versatile, to say the least,” says Brent Robinson, CEO of Aurora Digital Signage. “It is donning a pivotal role in reinstating consumer confidence in retail environments by providing real-time customer service.”

In fact, Brent’s firm Aurora Digital Signage is one of the frontrunners in bringing about this transition first-hand for their extensive clientele across various industries, including retail, banking, healthcare, and manufacturing. Aurora’s patented .NET content management platform is transforming the way businesses are communicating with their customers and employees. In particular, they are enhancing the timely communications of retail businesses by creating tailor-made solutions, leaning on their boutique service model and leveraging the expertise of their in-house development team.

In that regard, it is the intuitiveness of the platform that has steered Aurora ahead of its competition in the digital signage space. “We have based our platform on the patent that we had received for smartphone interaction with digital signage a few years ago,” says Susan Robinson, the COO of Aurora. She further emphasizes that they have built the software as user-friendly as possible. The clients thus require only very little training time and technical support for operating the platform. “Our .NET platform can be easily accessed through a PC or a smartphone. You can upload, schedule, and deploy content to a large network of panels regardless of their physical location, with just three clicks of the button,” adds Susan.

However, the platform has not compromised on its technological competencies while providing this ease of use. Aurora is hardware agnostic as long as the computers have a Microsoft Pro operating system with a 64-bit CPU and 4GB RAM. Interestingly, the platform can display on any screen—be it a tablet, or a kiosk, or an outdoor billboard. In addition, the software uses extremely low bandwidth, thereby allowing connectivity via WiFi, LAN, or even cellular, which is particularly helpful in the locations that do not have the sufficient frequency range for digital signages. At the same time, Aurora has also given predominant consideration to the security of the platform by providing 32 random keycode encryptions at three different levels—user, network, and panel—to avoid any infiltration.