From a Burden to a VAS - Secret Behind Free Commercial Wi-Fi in Italy Top Retailer UniEuro

SHENZHEN, China, Dec. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- UniEuro is one of the Top 3 Italian retailers in home appliances and digital products. It has developed into a well-known European chain enterprise of electric appliances since 1967, following the business principle of "Excellence and Achievement." Consumers have been impressed by its high-quality products, abundant choices, and professional service.

With the development of mobile Internet and smartphones, Internet access at anytime, anywhere has become an expectation. According to Mobidia, Wi-Fi networks carry about 70% of the world's data traffic on smartphones. The proportion reaches 80% or even higher in indoor scenarios. Free Wi-Fi service is indispensable almost everywhere. Therefore, more shopping malls and supermarkets hope to attract customers and improve service satisfaction by providing free Wi-Fi service. However, free Wi-Fi service in shopping malls and supermarkets face the following problems:

• Unprofessional network planning: No simulation tool or only 2D simulation tools are available, which cannot prevent interference between APs on the same floor and neighboring floors. Many Wi-Fi coverage holes exist, so Wi-Fi access fails to achieve the concurrent access capability and access rate as designed. STAs of customers always fail to obtain IP addresses and are disconnected frequently during roaming, greatly degrading customer experience. Unprofessional or improper network planning may also cause inaccurate STA location.
• No return on investment (ROI): Wi-Fi solutions in the industry typically provide Internet access and simple Portal advertisement push, with little ROI

As one of the Top 3 shopping malls and supermarkets in Italy, UniEuro is committed to providing customers with stable, high-quality free Wi-Fi service. Therefore, UniEuro requires a Wi-Fi solution that can achieve 100% coverage, eliminating signal interference between APs on the same floor and neighboring floors. Customers can easily access the Wi-Fi network to enjoy high-speed Internet service even in densely populated scenarios. Additionally, UniEuro needs to leverage the Wi-Fi network to serve the enterprise itself. Accurate STA locations, device model, and other information gathered from the Wi-Fi network are integrated with a professional third-party retail analysis platform for customer archiving and analysis. Based on the analysis result, UniEuro can trace the efficiency of marketing strategies and advertisements. The Wi-Fi network becomes an online-offline integrated marketing tool as well as an open platform, which can be integrated with professional third-party retail analysis platforms.

Huawei's commercial Wi-Fi solution for shopping malls and supermarkets has been selected as the Wi-Fi network provider for UniEuro after profound research. Huawei won UniEuro's trust for its high-performance APs, professional automated network planning tool, eSight location engine, and open architecture.

• Huawei's high-performance indoor AP5030DN supports the HD Boost feature that allows customers to easily access the Wi-Fi network in densely populated areas in shopping malls and supermarkets.
• Huawei's professional 3D network planning tool can avoid coverage holes and signal interference between APs on the same floor and neighboring floors. This significantly optimizes access experience in shopping malls and supermarkets, and lays a solid foundation for accurate STA location.
• Huawei's solution allows for easy advertisement customization and push on customizable portal pages to maximize the value of entrance advertisements.
• Huawei's unique eSight PAIRS wireless location solution implements accurate STA location for customer. Location information is transferred to a third-party professional retail analysis platform through application programming interfaces (APIs). The platform creates archives for customers' location information, enabling UniEuro to learn customer preferences and perform Big Data collection and analysis. Based on the effect of online and offline promotion advertisement, UniEuro can develop more effective marketing activities, greatly improving the ROI of advertisements.

Huawei's commercial Wi-Fi solution for shopping malls and supermarkets improves advertisement delivery efficiency and marketing quality. Free Wi-Fi service becomes a marketing tool with a high ROI, evolving from a burden to a value-added service (VAS) for UniEuro.