Why Digital Signage Matters for Tobacco Shops: Compliance with Engagement

How can you make your tobacco shop stand out in the pool of competitors? With the growing number of such points, you must focus on promoting your products while complying with regulations. Furthermore, it would help if you tried to deliver a customer-friendly in-store experience.

That’s why you should switch from traditional to digital signage. While traditional signages are efficient, they are challenging to handle. Updating menu items or pricing requires changing the entire signage. However, with digital signage, it’s just a matter of a few clicks.

Are you planning to invest in digital signage for your tobacco business? If yes, this blog post is your perfect guide to help you understand why you need the solution and how to get started. However, it’s not just tobacco shops or supermarkets with tobacco aisles who can use digital signage. Vape shops, smoke shops and big retail giants dealing with e-cigarettes can also use digital signage for various purposes.

Why is digital signage important for tobacco smoke shops?

The retail industry dominates the global digital signage market and is expected to rise from USD 20.1 billion in 2024 to USD 27.3 billion by 2029. With that being said, tobacco shops, smoke points, and vape shops are no different.

However, this industry is highly regulated, with strict regulations and restrictions revolving around health warnings, age restrictions, and advertisements. In such a scenario, traditional signage may fail to deliver the targeted advertisement to the customers while handling the regulations. However, with digital signage, shop owners can update content instantly. Furthermore, a single digital signage screen can display all such mandatory legal disclaimers while promoting the product in an eye-catching manner.

Another important aspect of digital signage is it drives customer engagement. For customers, tobacco shops are no longer a mere smoking point - they seek an experience. Digital signage helps you create an immersive in-store experience by compellingly showcasing the best products, limited-edition releases, or ongoing promotional offers.

For example, Let’s say a tobacco shop has a digital signage screen. With reliable digital signage software like Pickcel, they can part the screens into multiple zones. While one zone would be showcasing entertainment content like live matches or playing music, the other would be featuring ads for premium cigars or such products. Isn’t this a great way to entertain your customers while making them enjoy a pleasant smoking experience?

Beyond advertising and customer experience, you can also use digital signage to educate your customers. While people are looking ahead to other alternatives, such as vaping or nicotine pouches, shops can use screens to provide informative content. From explaining the differences between products to highlighting new arrivals, digital signage allows customers to make informed choices.

Key benefits of digital signage for tobacco smoke shops

Digital signage for tobacco shops is much beyond modern aesthetics. Besides being an efficient and digital alternative to traditional signage, it’s a great way to boost brand awareness for tobacco shops. When used effectively, it can skyrocket their revenue, thus offering numerous other benefits.

Some of them are:

1. Makes marketing easier

FDA, in 2018, categorized e-cigarettes and other forms of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) as “tobacco products,” thus subjecting them to the regulation. Furthermore, advertising such products is banned in countries like Canada and New Zealand.

While such regulations limit the reach of tobacco shops to their target audience, how are they supposed to increase their footfall and earn profits? Digital signage is the perfect marketing tool that helps attract potential clients within a locality while still abiding by the policies and regulations.

Digital signage is visually appealing, which makes it an absolute head-turner. They will grab the attention of the passersby quickly, thus turning them into your potential customers. Therefore, the more visually appealing your signage is, the more customers you have.

For example; let’s say a supermarket offering a tobacco aisle wants to use digital signage in that corner to market their products. Instead of directly showing the product, they can showcase other product info such as the making process of those products, health and safety regulations associated with it, etc.

2. Helps in promotions and up-selling

While your customers love promotional and seasonal offers, you need to find creative ways to make them reach your products and offers. For indoor marketing, digital marketing is a great solution.

You can inform and remind your walk-in customers with eye-catching and visually appealing promotional offers and forthcoming sales. Moreover, a study by the Out of Home Advertising Association of America (OAAA) in 2015 says that digital signage has a recall rate of 82%. Unlike traditional paper- and poster-based signage, this leaves a long-lasting impression on customers’ minds.

Additionally, displaying your entire catalog or menu on digital screens attracts customers to make unplanned purchases. It’s a great way to up-sell and cross-sell your products.

3. Builds brand awareness and differentiation

Tobacco shops mostly have identical product offerings. That said, you must use technology creatively to stand out amongst competitors. Digital signage will help you do that.

While most tobacco shops are still focused on traditional posters and fliers based on static signage, you can level up your marketing efforts with attractive digital signage screens. This differentiates you from the crowd and gives your customers a “wow” impression of your brand.

Furthermore, with digital signage screens, you can have a new visually appealing advertisement every day with just a few clicks. Isn’t this a great way to attract customers and build brand awareness?

4. Makes sales easier with POS

When integrated with point-of-sale (POS) systems, digital signage in tobacco stores can highlight personalized offers or related products at checkout, further driving upselling opportunities.

Additionally, real-time inventory updates ensure that promotions align with stock availability, reducing customer and staff frustration. This seamless integration enhances the shopping experience and helps increase sales efficiency and customer satisfaction.

5. Improves customer experience

Undoubtedly, digital signage helps tobacco shops effectively market their products and brands. However, the immersive, dynamic, and inclusive visuals on digital screens display even the essential information in a customer-centric and visually engaging way.

Besides providing them with information on your tobacco offerings and offers, it also makes shopping and smoking a facilitated, comfortable, and happy experience for them. This improves the customer experience, and they are more likely to walk into your store in the future.

What is digital signage used for in tobacco shops?

If you think you can use digital signage in tobacco stores just for advertising and showcasing your products, then you’re missing out on many things. A digital signage screen can be used in multiple ways for a tobacco store. Some of them are listed below.

1. Interactive product information displays

Tobacco shop owners can use digital signage screens or interactive kiosks to showcase the product alongside relevant information, such as their origin, flavor profile, and product strength. This allows customers to compare various products and brands and find the best one suited to their needs and flavors.

2. Compliance displays

While tobacco shops are subject to stringent legal regulations, digital signage allows the owners and managers to update such information quickly and easily. This eliminates the need to print the signs, thus always keeping the signage content fresh and relevant.

3. Educational content

As a tobacco shop owner, do you want to educate your customers on the latest trends, smoking alternatives, and other topics? Digital screens will help you display such educational content in a visually engaging way, thus allowing your customers to make informed decisions.

4. Loyalty programs and customer engagement

Digital signage can be a key driver in promoting loyalty programs. Screens can display rotating messages about current loyalty points, exclusive offers for members, or how customers can join the program. By making these programs more visible and accessible, tobacco shops can increase membership signups and customer retention.

5. Event displays

Do you want to livestream your new product launches or cigar-testing sessions to a broad audience? Digital signage can help you livestream and promote such events and feeds to your target customers, thus encouraging them to visit your tobacco store to try out the product.

Conclusion

Are you looking forward to implementing digital signage in your tobacco shops? If so, we suggest the best digital signage software, i.e., Pickcel. With Pickcel’s cloud-based and on-premise solution, you can show across screens almost instantly. This user-friendly software has a decade’s worth of creditworthiness from clients across the globe. Furthermore, from menu boards with POS integrations to video walls, it has a variety of solutions for you!

Do you want to know more about Pickcel? Talk to our sales team or sign up for a free trial to see how Pickcel can help your business grow.