Mobile POS Beta Site Fear Keeps Checkout Right By Exit
Written by Evan SchumanSeptember 28th, 2011
When the manager of a Florida hobby store was about to begin testing in-store mobile checkout as part of an NCR beta test in June, she envisioned using the devices throughout the store, to both free up POS space and give shoppers a faster experience. But like so many mobile-payment issues, those plans yielded to the reality of hosts of unanswered loss-prevention questions about the mobile payments. The manager ordered the Apple-based units be restricted to an existing POS area right by the exit.
As mobile payments inch along, retailers are trying to balance two concepts: the ideals of mobile-payment strategies with the mundane, practical logistics issues. And nowhere did those two concepts collide more clearly than in the one-location $3.5 million specialty store in Plantation, FL. How could someone at the door verify that the receipt is legitimate? For that matter, if the associate at the door is shown a digital receipt, how is he/she to know if it's a valid receipt—as opposed to a doctored image—unless the associate scans the receipt's barcode and runs a check to see if that item was indeed purchased in the prior 10 minutes?
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2 Comments | Read Mobile POS Beta Site Fear Keeps Checkout Right By Exit
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
-Christine
September 29th, 2011 at 7:54 am
The Mobile POS goal should be to capture transactions and not turn a product over to the customer.
Retailers who engage in employing mobile POS will also need to create a fulfillment or pickup station similiar to Best Buy or Fry’s or Toys R Us and Costco/Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart Site-to-Store workflow where the fulfillment station validate the receipt generated by the mobile POS.
September 29th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
While there are many challenges for Mobile POS systems to transform the traditional sales model, please give them credit where deserved. They do provide instant additional capacity to check out customers during busy times. They provide a very natural way to engage with the customer and by sending an emailed receipt and collect contact info from your customers. The can be used anywhere in the store to access product information such as warranty, related products, care and feeding in addition to on-hand and back ordered quantities for all you locations and the warehouse. With this new generation of multi-purpose devices, the same device can be used for counting, ordering , receiving and viewing customer purchase history and loyalty status. The device can be taken outside the store for various remote events and sidewalk sales.