Mobile retail runs on counter-side compute. BigC’s store network chose the RDP Mini PC for the three things that matter most behind a retail desk — compact footprint, reliable uptime, and a service cost that scales.
| Client | Sector | Product | Scale | Era | Geography |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BigC Mobiles | Mobile Retail | RDP Mini PC | Multi-store counter fleet | Standardised retail rollout | South India retail chain |
Client: BigC Mobiles
Product deployed: RDP Mini PC
The Challenge
BigC Mobiles runs a fast-moving retail business — walk-in customers, quick-fire billing, live stock lookups, EMI processing, customer KYC, and after-sales tickets all happening on the same counter in the same hour. The compute requirement is small in spec but large in reliability: every minute of counter downtime is a walk-away customer. Traditional tower desktops ate counter space, drew power, and had too many moving parts for a retail footprint.
The Deployment
BigC deployed the RDP Mini PC as the standard counter-side endpoint across its store network. The form factor freed up counter real-estate for product displays and customer interaction; the low power draw cut per-store running costs; and the standardised build gave BigC’s IT team a single device image to maintain across the whole chain. SSD storage kept boot and application launch instant, important at a counter where the customer is already waiting.
BigC operates in a segment where gross margins per handset sale sit in single digits. Every square centimetre of counter space that a tower desktop occupies is space that cannot display a ₹12,000 smartphone or a ₹499 accessory. The economics are direct: counter real estate converts to revenue per square foot, and a bulky PC undercuts that conversion. Multiply this across 80+ stores and the hidden cost of oversized hardware becomes a line item that matters at the P&L level.
There is a second, less obvious problem. Tower desktops in a retail environment with heavy foot traffic accumulate dust rapidly. Fans pull particulate matter into the chassis, thermal throttling follows within months, and the mean time between failures drops. Each field service call to a remote Tier-2 or Tier-3 town store costs BigC not just the repair bill but also the counter downtime — and in mobile retail, a counter that cannot bill is a counter that cannot sell.
The Outcome
BigC saw a lower total cost of ownership per counter, fewer field service calls, and a retail staff experience that no longer blamed the machine for the queue. The standardised footprint made store rollouts and refreshes materially faster.
The deployment model follows a principle we see across successful retail fleet rollouts: one device image, one hardware SKU, one support playbook. BigC’s IT team creates a single Windows image with the billing application, KYC verification module, and inventory sync agent pre-configured. That image clones to every RDP Mini PC in under eight minutes via USB. A new store goes from unboxing to first transaction in under 45 minutes — a process that previously took a full working day with tower desktops, peripheral matching, and driver troubleshooting.
Power draw deserves specific attention. Each RDP Mini PC at the counter draws under 15W at typical billing load, compared to 120–180W for the tower desktops it replaced. Across a chain of 80+ counters running 12-hour shifts, the annualised electricity saving alone recovers a meaningful share of the device cost. In states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana where commercial electricity tariffs have climbed steadily, this is not a rounding error — it is a structural cost advantage that compounds every quarter.
The Mini PC gives our counter staff one thing they asked for — it just works, every shift, every day.
BigC reports a 60% reduction in field service calls related to endpoint hardware in the first year after migration. The fanless, SSD-only architecture of the Mini PC eliminates the two most common failure modes — fan seizure and hard-disk head crash — that accounted for the majority of prior desktop repair tickets. For a retail chain where each store may sit 90 minutes from the nearest authorised service point, fewer calls translates directly into higher counter uptime and lower logistics cost for the IT team.
From an asset management standpoint, the uniformity matters as much as the reliability. BigC’s IT head maintains a single spare-parts inventory: one Mini PC SKU, one power adapter model, one VESA mount bracket. Compare this to the prior state — three different desktop vendors, five chassis variants, a drawer full of mismatched RAM sticks and SATA cables. Standardisation does not sound dramatic, but at fleet scale it is the difference between a two-person IT team that copes and one that drowns.
BigC Mobiles retail operations
The Product
The RDP Mini PC is ideal for retail and counter-first environments. Compact, silent, low-power, and simple to manage — a full desktop experience in a form factor that disappears into the counter, exactly where retail IT wants it.
BigC’s migration reflects a broader pattern we track across Indian retail and enterprise fleets. For the cost framework behind decisions like this, read our five-year TCO comparison of Indian versus imported IT hardware. Retail chains evaluating a similar shift in 2026 will also find practical decision criteria in our fleet refresh decision framework. And for context on why chains like BigC increasingly prefer domestically manufactured endpoints, see our analysis of why Indian organisations are choosing Made-in-India IT hardware.
This case study was originally produced during 2019 on the legacy RDP website (erp.rdp.in) and has been refreshed for the 2026 editorial programme. Core facts, testimonials, and unit counts are preserved from the original engagement.
The RDP Mini PC fits behind a standard monitor via VESA mount, which means the counter surface holds only a monitor, a barcode scanner, and the cash drawer. The form factor is not merely convenient — it changes the customer-facing experience. Staff interact across a clean counter rather than peering around a tower, and store managers gain flexibility to rearrange layouts seasonally without re-cabling.
About RDP
RDP Technologies Limited is a Hyderabad-based Indian OEM with 14 years of track record, 100,000+ devices shipped, and over 1 million end users across government, education, and enterprise deployments. RDP manufactures from a 28,000 sqft facility, operates 6,000+ GeM-listed SKUs, and is a PLI 2.0 beneficiary with ISO 9001, BIS, and MeitY certifications. Strategic technology partnerships with Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and Microsoft underpin the product roadmap across desktops, laptops, mini PCs, thin clients, workstations, AI PCs, and servers. Explore the product range or talk to our team.