A new report has revealed solutions for retailers keen to counter the 'siren song of showrooming'.
The PayPal 'Secure Insight: Capturing Digital Spend' report, released today, identified various changes to the retail landscape with a focus on the rapid evolution of point-of-sale (POS) systems.
The study identified that innovative POS is allowing retailers to better capture digital spend – which on smart phones has soared by more than 5,000 per cent in three years.
According to the report, in addition, the innovation being developed at POS is providing retailers with opportunities to tackle the strong 'showrooming' trend at large.
“POS evolution will fundamentally change the nature of merchant-consumer interaction. The combination of mobile devices, the proliferation of sensors, the integration of data such as online search with instore customer tracking and purchasing, and the deep creativity of app developers will greatly impact the customer experience in both online and in-store environments.
“Together, these POS-enabled capabilities create merchant opportunities to engage customers instore in uniquely personalised and compelling ways, leveraging the latest POS-integrated solutions to strongly counter the 'siren song of showrooming'.”
The study also identified the major drivers behind POS innovations as, mainly: mobile, sensors, developers, and increasingly, the cloud.
Cloud solutions
SMBs will typically be among the fi rst to migrate to software-as-a-service (SaaS) or hosted/managed platforms in the cloud, later followed by larger merchants. These solutions will require fewer IT resources and reduce the costs and complexities associated with maintaining POS solutions.
Sales empowerment and management
Next-generation front end-registers – for instance, those that are tablet-based with deep back-end integration – will allow salespeople to identify consumers, know their preferences, and instantly personalise services. Product knowledge on these now portable register terminals will enable more effective upsell and cross-sell, as well as improved customer satisfaction.
Omnichannel
Back-end software will increasingly have the business logic and order management required to handle complex inventory and fulfilment. Merchants will be able to support multiple channels from a common infrastructure and access real-time transaction fl ows. For example, POS software will be able to track item-level information to suggest reorders, crossell opportunities, dynamic pricing, and different customer delivery options.
Big data
As more back-end software migrates to the cloud and is further integrated with other software, there will be greater ability to access customer and product data across multiple platforms for powerful CRM functionality. This will include capturing consumer information (such as purchase history, behaviour, demographics, and payment preferences) to fuel pre- and aftermarketing, predictive analytics, and even integration of related social trending data.
Source: A combination of PayPal and Nielsen data.