BOSTON -- Retailers including convenience stores are focused on significantly expanding the use of mobile technology for point-of-sale (POS), customer engagement and payments, according to a recent report by Boston Retail Partners (BRP).
Mobile Technology: Transforming the Customer Experience assesses how mobile devices will change both retail operations and the customer shopping experience over the next two years.
"Mobile technology enables retailers to break down barriers between the digital environment and the physical store," said Ken Morris, principal at Boston Retail Partners. "Advancements in mobile capabilities are driving retailers to upgrade and replace technology to keep ahead of the competition and keep up with their very informed, technology-savvy customers. In the payments arena, mobile payments could become the next 'killer app' for mobile devices, much like what iTunes did for music."
Retailers understand that mobile devices are omnipresent in the lives of their target consumers, dramatically changing the retail shopping experience. Consumers commonly use mobile devices to research products, compare prices, buy and pay online, as well as to pay for in-store purchases. This mobile trend has also created opportunities for retailers to enhance customer service. Putting mobile devices in the hands of store associates enables inventory lookup (enterprise-wide) even for products not immediately available, supports the associate providing assistance to the customer on the selling floor and supports transaction processing anywhere in the store.
To better understand the actual impact mobile devices are having on retail and the shopping experience, BRP surveyed the top North American retailers to explore the current state of how mobile technology is shaping retail capabilities, priorities and processes to explore the significant impact of mobile devices on store operations and how they are "changing retail as we know it."
The report emphasizes how mobile devices are impacting retail in three key areas:
- Mobile POS: Using a mobile device as the checkout device; nearly 300% more retailers plan to deploy mobile POS in the next two years.
- Customer-facing mobile services: Leveraging mobile devices to enhance the shopping experience; approximately 200% more retailers plan to use geolocation within three years.
- Mobile payment: Using a customer's smartphone as a payment device; 350% more retailers plan to support near-field communications (NFC ) payments by October 2015.
Boston Retail Partners (BRP) is an independent retail management consulting firm delivering design and implementation of strategy, technology and process solutions.
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