Adoption of self-service kiosks and picking up online orders in store are both expected to increase in 2017.
2017 is set to bring new trends and changes, especially around technology adoption, to the retail industry.
Doug Baldasare, CEO and founder of ChargeItSpot, the in-store phone charging station used by retailers like Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Uniqlo, shared his thoughts on some of the trends that will impact retailers in the New Year.
- More retailers will adopt self-service kiosks (SSK) for the first-time.
- Fragmentation will slow mobile pay adoption.
- Buy-online-pick up-in-store (BOPIS) adoption will explode.
Many retailers will adopt SSKs for the first time.
“2017 could see wider adoption for self-service kiosk (SSK) technology. As Amazon Go proved recently, consumers increasingly want frictionless shopping experiences at all stages – research, browsing, buying. As automation becomes more normalized, we could begin to see SSK technology replace point-of-sale (POS) experiences in department stores and big box retailers. Mobile pay has been a first step. However, expect other integrations to occur among major retailers to bring SSKs outside of the grocery and c-store bubble,” Baldasare said.
Fragmentation will slow mobile pay.
“Banks, retailers and credit card companies are all trying to control the mobile payment experience. This has created a challenging degree of fragmentation in the category. Compounding this issue, of course, are the mobile manufacturers and software developers – think Apple, Google and PayPal – that enable mobile pay through their products and services,” Baldasare said. “The excessive fragmentation and redundancy with no undisputed market leader (though Apple is trying) is slowing consumer adoption overall. There are so many options that shoppers are unsure of which service to use at POS. So, they believe it’s easier to checkout via traditional methods, or simply forget about mobile pay altogether. For mobile payments to truly take off, a market leader that works across any mobile OS must emerge to bring standardization to the category.”
BOPIS adoption will explode.
“Today, consumers crave omnichannel shopping experiences. They want to be able to seamlessly move from online to brick-and-mortar with little resistance across the two environments. For retailers, this means offering more buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS) capabilities. BOPIS bridges the divide between online and offline, providing an altogether positive experience to shoppers. In fact, many shoppers even pick retailers because of BOPIS availability, though the majority of online shoppers still do not pick up in store. In 2017, expect more retailers to provide BOPIS opportunities to shoppers,” Baldasare said. “They will be incentivized by the possibility of improved customer satisfaction, but also by the potential for more in-store transactions. Many shoppers purchase additional items at the physical store upon pick-up. There is a lot of untapped potential here. Given the benefits, retailers will push BOPIS even harder to consumers in the New Year.”
