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This week, the North American Retail Hardware Association (NRHA) is holding its Rethink Retail Conference in Las Vegas, addressing two hot topics: digital technology for retail, and loyalty marketing. The focus on technology is not surprising, in particular since the association's recent studies show real increases on sales when digital signage is used in shops.

The NRHA has published the results of research that compared sales of specific products in stores that used digital signage for promotion against stores that did not. For the research, the NRHA teamed with BrightSign customer Aubuchon Hardware, a large hardware retail chain with 130 stores in the USA. The results of the NRHA test confirm that product sales increased when interactive digital signage is used. Aubuchon Hardware branches saw unit sales rise by 23 percent for interior paint, 45 percent for smoke detectors and a remarkable 178 percent for air filters in stores with BrightSign-powered digital signage promoting specials on those products, compared to Aubuchon stores without digital signage.

"The information we've received shows every hardware retail location using our BrightSign players reported significant sales lift," said Jeff Hastings, BrightSign chief executive. "The hardware store trials clearly support the fact that highly visible product information with moving graphics and streaming content creates a measurable ROI for store management. When you see such a substantial increase in sales of paint and air filters, certainly not what you would consider impulse buys, the impact of digital signage over printed signs becomes obvious," he emphasised.

For the test, Aubuchon placed Endcap digital signage displays powered by BrightSign players in six stores and ran interactive presentations produced by the NRHA for one month. The sales results were then compared to six other stores in the chain that historically had similar sales for the products tested.

Intel Digital Signage Endcap Concept is based on second generation Intel Core processor technology, and uses the Intel AIM Suite built specifically for anonymous audience measurement. Endcap works two ways: not only does it provide retailers with valuable information about its customers, but it also allows them to send offers, recommendations and promotions to smartphones, PCs and other devices.

BrightSign is making waves in the market. In April it launched smaller, lower cost HD solid-state digital signage controllers. The new HD line comes in three flavours: BrightSign HD120 – a basic interactive model; BrightSign HD220 – networked looping model; and BrightSign HD1020 – a networked interactive model. The company will be exhibiting at Screenmedia Expo in Earls Court, London on May 16th and 17th.

Back in January, BrightSign and signagelive announced their collaboration. Jason Cremins, chief executive of signagelive explains: "We selected BrightSign players for their proven reliability, advanced features. BrightSign range of networked devices can be integrated with signagelive to provide a solution that rivals the technical capabilities and stability of more expensive PC-based solutions." Screenmedia Expo visitors can also see how BrightSign works with cloud-based digital signage solutions from signagelive on the latter's stand.