The company that makes it possible for you to shop on the subway platform

Intersection, the Hudson Yards-based company behind those LinkNYC kiosks, has partnered with the New York Transit Museum for another kind of kiosk: the holiday shopping kind.
The museum’s Gift Guide is featured on 161 MTA “On the Go” kiosks at 34 subway stations across the city during the holiday season, running from Nov. 24 to Jan. 1. Nineteen of those stations are located in Brooklyn, including the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center and Borough Hall stops. The kiosks, which Intersection describes as digital holiday storefronts, offer children’s toys, apparel and collectibles from the NY Transit Museum Gift Guide. The kiosks let you send links via email or text message about gifts you’re interested in and nearly 1,000 people have done so already, according to Intersection.
It’s the third year Intersection has turned the kiosks into shopping sites. Last year, the kiosks featured products from Amazon.
As Regina Asborno, deputy director of the museum put it, “What better place to shop for gifts than a subway platform?”
She points out that “data from this kiosk campaign will help us make informed product development and marketing choices.”
The museum has seen a spike in sales of holiday ornaments and the Grand Central Ceiling silk scarf since the kiosk campaign began, she said.
Intersection strategy lead Damian Gutierrez said the program was developed through extensive user research to understand which features and information riders would find most valuable. Intersection built the software, while Massachusetts company CIVIQ Smartscapes built the hardware.
Intersection is considering further expansion of the pop-up kiosk program, which is supported by ad revenue.
“We’ll continue to use the On the Go network to push the boundaries of what digital out-of-home is capable of doing as both an advertising medium and as a platform to deliver new experiences for transit customers,” Gutierrez said.
These holiday pop-up kiosks are another key example of the trend toward ambient interactivity, or interactive forms built into physical structures and environments. The kiosks allow the NY Transit Museum to reach a much wider array of riders and promote their museum’s gifts and merchandise in a novel and convenient way.