Kiosk makers have touch to change music retailing

A NOBLE Park manufacturer of touch-screen kiosks is leading the way in a nationwide retail music revolution.
NeoProducts has been in operation since 1987 and since 1992 has been producing touch screen products geared at customer self-service.
Managing director Peter Stone said NeoProducts was currently enjoying the boom provided by retail camera and photo stores who were purchasing the kiosks to allow customers to pick their own photos from their own digital camera media and print them within minutes.
But the emerging trend, according to Mr Stone, is in the retail music industry, where in Sydney, stores like Sanity Music are trialling kiosks that allow customers to create their own music CDs from up to 600,000 songs, or download the songs in digitally-protected music files to an MP3 player.
“Certainly the photographic and retail photo scene is a major part of our industry,” he said.
“But we are certainly seeing growth in other places like music, which will hopefully be the next big thing for us.”
The Sydney trial is travelling smoothly, Mr Stone said, but he added that any industry could benefit from touch-screen interfaces, which provide more options at the fingertips of customers.
“It could be airline tickets, border control for customs, it could be building access control, updating driver licence information, issuing tickets to use on public transport.
“The technology is useful in any possible, conceivable area where you want to produce self-service.”
With over 35,000 machines installed worldwide and offices internationally, including the United Kingdom, NeoProducts is leading the way in its industry, and according to Mr Stone, all design and manufacturing for global and local operations are done entirely in Noble Park.