InVue Whitepaper: The Evolving Check-Out Lane
Mobile Point of Sale capabilities are helping to reshape the checkout experience.
Ever since saloon owner James Ritty invented the cash register in 1879 in an effort to stop his employees from pocketing his profits, checking out a customer’s purchases has followed the same basic model. Whether the checkout is in the front of the store, in the back or off to the side it is the last stop before the shopper heads out of the store. Larger format stores and hyper markets may have strategically placed registers in specific departments like jewelry, customer service, sporting goods, hardware, etc depending on store layout.
And in nearly all cases, the checkout lane is set up for the convenience of the retailer rather than the customer. In addition to serving as a storage facility for bags, scissors, paperwork and employee drinks, they function—at least in the minds of many retailers— as the final destination on a shopper’s journey throughout the store. But that’s changing.
Although the concept of a checkout lane has remained largely intact over the years, even as cash registers have evolved from Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier to today’s networked point-of-sale systems, they’re beginning to show their age. Shoppers are demanding a better in store experience, and those lanes just aren’t doing the job.
According to a 2015 study conducted online by Harris Poll and commissioned by image technology company Digimarc, an overwhelming majority of Americans—88 percent— want their store checkout experience to be faster. A combined 50 percent of respondents named slow checkout speeds and long lines as their top grievances. “Checkout is the last opportunity a retailer has to make a positive impression on a shopper,” said Digimarc Chief Marketing Officer Larry Logan when the poll results were released. “Asking customers to endure a lengthy wait to process and pay for their order can spoil what may have otherwise been an enjoyable shopping experience.”
Other disappointing features about the checkout process is a lack of quality human interaction and perceived gratitude. A majority of respondents to the Harris poll—61 percent—felt that clerks focused more on scanning items and less on finding out if they’re satisfied.
With the addition of new technology, retailers now have an opportunity to address those customer concerns, reshape the checkout experience and increase same store sales in the process.
One desses canais é maximizar a mobilidade de um tablet. Com a solução certa, um tablet pode ser acoplado a um suporte como um sistema de PDV para tablet ou como um quiosque para que os clientes preencham pesquisas, inscrevam-se e acessem programas de fidelidade, preencham solicitações de crédito e procurem itens no catálogo da loja. Quando conectado a um banco de dados corporativo, o quiosque pode ser usado para ver se há itens em estoque em um local próximo ou para serem entregues na casa do comprador. Combinando um tablet com um dispositivo de pagamento, um tablet pode ser usado para converter uma função típica de "corredor sem fim" em uma transação que permite ao cliente fazer pedidos e pagar por itens sem o processo de ir até o suporte na fila.
"O espaço no varejo é valioso e limitado, o que impede que os proprietários de lojas tenham todos os tamanhos e todas as cores nas prateleiras. Uma solução de quiosque baseada em tablet que suporta aplicações do tipo corredor infinito e a capacidade de viabilizar as metas de atendimento omnichannel de uma empresa é fundamental para a lucratividade da empresa", disse Jim Sankey, CEO da InVue, sediada em Charlotte, N.C., fornecedora global de soluções inovadoras de segurança e viabilização de vendas para varejistas e empresas comerciais de varejo.
“Using a tablet as a mobile, interactive sales tool prevents that customer from leaving and going to your competition, or worse yet, using their phone while in your store to buy the same product on a competitor’s website.”
As retailers seek ways to remain relevant in an era of e-commerce and mobile commerce, one of the ways they can differentiate themselves is via the customer experience. Econsultancy’s 2017 Digital Trends Report, published in association with Adobe, calls this the “experience economy.”
A experiência do cliente é considerada a principal maneira de as organizações se diferenciarem dos concorrentes, segundo o relatório. Os entrevistados em uma pesquisa para o relatório disseram, em sua maioria, que a experiência do cliente era sua oportunidade mais interessante. Embora os quiosques com tablets estejam ajudando a remodelar a experiência do cliente, seu verdadeiro valor não vem do fato de servirem como um dispositivo fixo. Em vez disso, esse valor é aumentado drasticamente pela capacidade de remover os tablets de seus suportes e usá-los como uma ferramenta de venda assistida.
Acrescentar o recurso móvel à tecnologia na loja transforma uma experiência interativa do cliente em uma experiência interpessoal, o que aumentará o número de transações na loja", disse Sankey.
transações na loja", disse Sankey. invue's Os produtos da empresa incluem seu sistema tablet POS, que apresenta visualização de 3 eixos, integração opcional de dispositivos POS móveis e portas USB 2.0 para a adição de periféricos, como leitores de cartões e pistolas de leitura. A auditoria e a mobilidade ilimitada são possíveis com o controle de software e a tecnologia de desacoplamento rápido do tablet. O sistema tablet POS fornece energia e segurança para tablets integrados e dispositivos móveis de POS, acomodando tablets de 8" a 13".
“Mobility enables customer interactive applications to become technical sales tools,” Sankey said. “These tools enable store associates to build value around the product, your store brand and provide an improved customer experience driving increased profitability around each sale.”
This allows the associate to capture the sale at the point of decision for the customer. There is no opportunity to abandon the cart while waiting in line and causing you to lose the sale. All this while improving the customer experience which gets them to want to come back.
Along with creating new opportunities and new ways of interacting with customers inside the story, the mobility features of a tablet kiosk solution offer new opportunities
outside the store as well.
Mobile applications enable the experience to happen inside or outside a store or restaurant. Enabling payment devices to be mobile with a tablet, the sales tool can be table side, pool side or at a remote special event. This enables the same secure payment you have in the store to go mobile. You are improving the customer experience with the security you expect around payments as well as expanding the use of your loyalty programs.
“The ability to participate in those events to enable that customer experience is an important part of remaining competitive,” Skip Hinshaw, Vice President of Commerical said. “I’ve now gone from a brick-and-mortar location to a situation where I can literally carry my store around with me in my hand.”