Customer Success Story
Outletcity Metzingen transforms the shopping experience
Outletcity strives to offer visitors the best shopping experience across any touchpoint. To achieve greater digitalization of the shopping experience, it deployed Juniper wireless networking, powered by Mist AI. The Wi-Fi covers 40,000 square meters of retail floor space as well as outdoor areas and parking garages.
Great Wi-Fi is particularly important for Outletcity’s many international visitors. Optimized Wi-Fi also supports Outletcity’s mobile app and loyalty club as well as retail analytics, and COVID-safe shopping.
4.2 million
Shoppers per year (pre-pandemic) had perfect internet connectivity
40,000
Square meters of retail floor space is connected to Wi-Fi to enable digital shopping
Supported
Innovative digital services, including loyalty club, digital queue management, and upcoming location-based engagement services
Utilized
Omnichannel management to enable location-based services
Exceptional retail experiences
“Outletcity Metzingen’s vision is to offer every guest the best shopping experience at any touchpoint, which inspires us to work every day with the spirit of passion and innovation,” says Simon Drees, director of omnichannel services and innovations at Outletcity Metzingen
Digital elements, including Outletcity’s online shop, the Outletcity Club app, and interactive screens at partner brands like Tommy Hilfiger, enable online purchases, blurring the boundaries between in-store and digital retail experiences. Wi-Fi also enables innovative digital solutions like digital queue management, which is a game changer in these times of coronavirus.
The experience begins the moment shoppers arrive. Parking is plentiful, but people can also hop on a shuttle bus from Stuttgart. Personal shoppers can help with luxury brands, and onsite childcare is a fun experience for the kids. And of course, there’s free Wi-Fi.
Outletcity’s previous Wi-Fi solution was simply too limited to support its vision of today’s retail experience. “To achieve greater digitalization of the shopping experience, we needed an excellent network infrastructure,” Drees says.“A Juniper network enables us to deliver that experience.”
Simplify and scale wi-fi
Outletcity relies on Juniper Wireless Services driven by Mist AI. The Wi-Fi covers 40,000 square meters of retail floor space, as well as outdoor areas and parking garages.
The simplicity and scalability of Juniper networking and the Juniper Mist cloud architecture is a powerful advantage for the scope and complexity of Outletcity’s vision. The Juniper Series of High-Performance Access Points work with the Mist cloud architecture and Mist AI to deliver exceptional network user experiences and to automate and simplify network operations for the IT team. Juniper’s wireless solution met all of Outletcity’s requirements for optimized Wi-Fi to support digital retail experiences.
A key factor in choosing Juniper was the design of the Juniper Access Points, which converge Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, and IoT. Integrated and patented virtual Bluetooth LE (BLE) technology makes it easier for Outletcity to roll out future shopper engagement services without having to deploy and manage an overlay network of battery-powered BLE beacons.
“We intend to use the Bluetooth beacon functionality in Juniper Access Points to create a better shopping experience,” Drees says.
Virtual Bluetooth LE is critical to efficiently scale digital engagement. “Battery-powered Bluetooth beacons are a nightmare on an operating level,” Drees says. “It wouldn’t be possible to offer an interactive push messaging feature with battery-powered beacons. Virtual Bluetooth beacons are integrated into Juniper Access Points, and it’s why we chose Juniper Mist.
Grow customer loyalty
Outletcity increased its Wi-Fi coverage tenfold in 2020 and saw a dramatic increase in the use of its mobile app. With the first phase complete, Drees and Stelter are turning their attention to expand Wi-Fi coverage to even more buildings and outdoor areas in 2021.
The team is exploring new ways to engage shoppers with realtime indoor location services, such as location-based proximity notifications for special offers and coupons. The Juniper Mist User Engagement cloud service uses the virtual BLE capability of the Juniper Access Points and cloud-based machine learning to make location services more accurate and simpler to deploy.
“We will develop applications that take advantage of the Juniper Access Points with virtual Bluetooth,” Stelter says. “We are very interested in using the location services technology.”
The Products
AP21
The Juniper AP21 is a high-performance access point that supports 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi and patented virtual Bluetooth® LE.
AP41
The Juniper AP41 series are high-performance 802.11ac Wave 2 access points with integrated patented virtual Bluetooth® LE and Internet of Things (IoT).
AP61
The Juniper AP61 series are outdoor access points that support 802.11ac Wave 2 Wi-Fi, patented Bluetooth® LE, and Internet of Things (IoT) integration.
BT11
The Juniper BT11 is an enterprise-grade access point exclusively for Bluetooth® Low Energy.
Published August 2023