DDi - April/May 2012 - (Page 38)

38 M U L T I C H A N N E L R E T A I L MOBILE WALLETS M By Janet Groeber Coming soon to a retailer near you obile wallets are making news, and with good reason. More than twothirds of U.S. consumers with cell phones have those with operating systems capable of handling sales transactions. While anticipation was—and is—high for customers to shop from their phones, there’s been an increase in action for customers to pay with their phones. Not all mobile wallets are created equal, and presently some technologies deployed include premium SMS-based transactional payments, directmobile billing, mobile Web payments (WAP) and contactless or near-ﬁeld communication (NFC). Combined with cloud technology, retailers now have cost-effective ways to improve efﬁciency, enhance internal communication and develop a “common commercial alignment” from the ofﬁces of senior management to the selling ﬂoor. Yes, the selling ﬂoor. Mobile wallets are designed to ease and speed bricks-and-mortar transactions. In a grab-and-go society, “tap and go” appeals to tech-savvy shoppers. SMS messages are being deployed as payment systems by startups, such as Seconds. The company likes to point out that texting customers is natural, since more than 234 million U.S. consumers hold mobile devices with texting capabilities. There’s no app to download and no special device needed to make a purchase with this form of mobile wallet technology. NFC is one of the latest technologies to reach retail, although it’s been around since 2003. It allows consumers to make transactions, exchange digital content and connect electronic devices with a tap. And it’s likely to overtake bulging wallets in handbags, backpacks and pockets. It’s the technology behind PayPal (now moving into bricks-and-mortar sites), Square, Google Wallet and Proximiant. Beyond streamlining the bulging terrestrial wallet, the technology has the ability to slim down wait times or lines in stores, thus enhancing the overall customer experience. “The pickup in NFC adoption in handsets and retail checkout terminals really created a unique opportunity to make the point-of-sale much more than a sale,” says Fang Cheng, Proximiant’s co-founder and CEO. “It creates an opportunity to connect the retailers and the shoppers in a simple ‘touch and go’ fashion—that connection survives beyond the transaction itself and allows the retailers to continue a personalized dialogue with their customers even after they’ve left the store.” Here’s a short round up of some standouts: PayPal, eBay’s online payment service, is in rollout mode since completing a 51-unit pilot program at Atlanta-based Home Depot, now expanding into all of the home-improvement retailer’s 2,000 U.S. stores. Shoppers with a PayPal account pay by swiping a PayPal card and entering a PIN. They can also pay by entering their cell phone number and the PIN. Customers can purchase goods without having to carry any form of payment. PayPal has also been in test mode at Ofﬁce Depot and expects to be available at another 20 retailers by year’s end. Google Wallet has been making headlines for several reasons, especially for its ease of use. A mere tap of an Android smart phone on the reader (customers need only look for MasterCard, PayPass and Google Wallet logos) and the phone sends payment. Some merchants include offers and loyalty information. A version of Google Wallet is already available at Macy’s, CVS, Jamba Juice and American Eagle. Google says it plans to bring Google Wallet to 10 phones this year, including Sprint’s Samsung Galaxy Nexus. However, one downside of mobile wallets is the possibility of hacking. Earlier this year, Google Wallet experienced a security problem in the form of a potential hack, which was discovered in February. The good news: no evidence of credit card abuse or theft was found. Meanwhile, the company reports Google Checkout for online is transitioning to Google Wallet. Square was one of the ﬁrst to make mobile credit card payment processing easy for individuals and small businesses. Its signature small, square card reader (and free app) turns a tablet or smart phone into a POS device. Square’s new product is Card Case—designed for those who normally carry credit or debit cards—which places a mobile wallet on a consumer’s iPhone or Android smart phone that they can use at any Square-enabled business. Jack Dorsey, Square’s CEO (and one of Twitter’s founders), explains that it transforms an iOS or Android-based device into a repository for multiple virtual payment cards, making them into a “companion” to each Square Register. Users can store credit card information for each business they visit. Upon entering the business, users can enter their name, select their virtual card from the Card Case app and order items while Card Case handles the rest. Proximiant offers tap-and-go digital receipts to enhance the shopping experience for consumers, featuring itemized receipts for easy tracking of purchases, loyalty programs and coupons, regardless of payment type. Consumers can therefore pay via cash, check or credit cards, as opposed to other NFC technologies. Customers no longer have to disclose personal information or e-mail addresses to get their receipts—it’s all with a tap of the Proximiant transceiver. The “plug-and-play” transceiver can be integrated seamlessly with any POS system. At the moment, Proximiant is being used by a number of San Francisco-area indie merchants and expanding this year to Boston, New York and Chicago. To e-mail this article, visit www.ddionline.com/magazine. | Photo: Courtesy of Proximiant, Mountain View, Calif. April/May 2012 www.ddionline.com http://www.ddionline.com/magazine http://www.ddionline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DDi - April/May 2012

DDi - April/May 2012
Table of Contents
From the Editor
From the Show Director
Newsworthy
Shopper Insights
Greentailing
Editor’s Choice
Design Snapshot
Loblaws
The new food retail
Channel Focus: Jewelry
What’s next for digital retail?
Mobile wallets
Product Spotlight: Technology
Right Light
Post-Show Coverage
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Think Tank

DDi - April/May 2012