When you walk past a flagship store on an Indian high street today, there’s a good chance the glass window you are looking through isn’t glass at all – it’s a transparent LED screen, quietly running content that’s visible from both inside and outside the store.  

Unlike conventional LED screens, transparent displays let shoppers see the content while still retaining visibility of the store or product behind the screen. They also occupy comparatively less physical space – a combination that is drawing retailers' attention as they look for ways to blend digital storytelling with the physical store environment. 

Dhruv Chhabra, CTO, Techworks, sees transparent displays as one of the formats that will shape the next phase of retail technology in India, as more brands look to blend digital and physical store experiences. But he is clear that adoption will stay measured, driven by demonstrated ROI and a clear purpose for the store, rather than the novelty of the format alone. This is one of the reasons he feels large-scale deployment of transparent LEDs has yet to happen in India. Most of the activity so far is concentrated around experience stores, luxury retail, and locations with strong high-street visibility. Currently, transparent LEDs account for just a very small percentage of Techworks’ total installations, which underlines how nascent the technology still is in the Indian market. 

"In India, everyone is still experimenting with it. There has not been a full-fledged large-scale deployment yet. Experience stores are where a lot of that experimentation is happening," says Dhruv. 

The technology has to justify its cost 

For brands, the question is less about whether transparent LEDs look impressive and more about whether they can justify the investment. Dhruv believes retailers are likely to test the technology at selected flagship or landmark stores before considering any wider rollout, weighing it directly against standard LED displays. 

"They will experiment in a few locations and observe whether there is an ROI. If a standard LED delivers the same output as a transparent LED, they will probably shift to the standard option. There has to be some value or experience justification for everything," he says. 

But transparent displays are very clearly part of Techworks’ own roadmap. In fact, Dhruv counts transparent LEDs among the technologies the company is building toward as it works on bringing digital and physical retail systems closer together. The company aims to position it as one of the formats it expects to matter in the next phase of in-store technology, alongside its work on unconventional display formats.