In-Store Listening Stations at Hot Topic Music Retail Chain

Project Introduction:
Hot Topic is an American chain store with over 690 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico, the majority of which are located in shopping malls. The store specializes in music and pop-culture related fashion and merchandise including clothing, books, comics, jewelry, CDs, records, posters, and other items. They also back major concert events like Ozzfest , etc.

More and more stores are providing interactive displays for their customers to engage in the use of the product in the store before their actual purchase. Hot Topic, with all their music selections, wanted to provide a hands-on interactive display for the customer to listen to new music or an artist before making their purchase. The objective is to drive business of all their products (t-shirts, accessories, novelty items, etc.), not just their music selections.

Due to their media-centric customer base, the company sought to introduce an interactive listening station into its stores to enhance the in-store product selection experience. However, the device that they would decide on would need to meet the demanding requirements of the usual retail application - not to mention the interactive demands of their technology-savvy market. The listening station would need to be intuitive, feature easy-to-use touch interface, be powerful to run media dependably, and be rugged enough for the retail market's demands for maximum up-time.

System Description:
The TPC-1570 is loaded with 40 different songs from different artists. Each song and artist is displayed on the screen for the customer to touch and load. The total system is mounted into a wall display with the CDs of the songs displayed located around the system. The customer puts on headphones that are connected to the TPC-1570 and touches the song or artist he/she would like to hear. The song is instantly played through their headsets. They can play all 40 songs if they chose or just play one. The TPC-1570 is connected to Hot Topic’s network. Hot Topic at any time can change the songs or artist on all the TPC 1570’s throughout their change at any given time. This allows Hot Topic the ability to keep all music options current.

Conclusions:
From the initial discussion to implementation of the listening stations took six months and with the TPC-1570 being fanless, Hot Topic was extremely satisfied with Advantech’s quickness, product, and reliability. To date, there are 428 systems installed in all their stores.