Insights

Last week, I looked at the top three trends that disrupted how retailers engage their customers during 2015. This week, I predict the top three trends that will set the course for customer engagement in 2016.

As Seen on TV

Retailers and hospitality enterprises have a weak point unique to their business – the point of sale (POS) device. Despite significant investment in security, it’s still too easy for cybercriminals to access corporate networks via POS.

POS devices handle most of the payment card transactions around the world for retailers, restaurants, hotels, grocers, and gas stations. Because these systems are highly interconnected and accessed by numerous employees and other devices, they remain a highly lucrative target for organized cybercrime.

“Now Trending” is an exclusive online series to chainstoreage.com, featuring trending topics that impact the retail real estate landscape.

With 2016 upon us, many employers find themselves nervously awaiting what election-year politics might bring to their doorsteps. Retailers and restaurant operators, more than ever, have been thrust front and center into the political landscape, with labor issues at the top of candidate's agendas as well as the subject of numerous ballot issues at the state and local level. As a result, the business models and labor practices of entry-level employers are being evaluated by the public in much the same way the candidates are.

I don’t make mobile payments yet. I don’t drink coffee, so I do not frequent Starbucks. However, I have been attempting to get up to speed on the state of the market. As I have a phone running Android, v5.1.1, that’s the best place for me to start, as that’s where my familiarity lies.

Occupancy costs are among the largest expenses for any retailer. Total lease obligations can exceed long term debt in many companies, reducing profitability and hindering growth. It doesn’t have to be that way though if operators follow four simple rules of retail real estate.

2015 has been a good year for e-commerce. Alibaba shattered records on Singles Day with $14.3 billion in sales. India witnessed a boom in e-commerce investment from companies looking to win the millions of new smartphone users. Even the Girl Scouts joined the digital mix, rolling out version 2.0 of their Digital Cookie program to boost their online cookie sales.

I remember something a retailer once said to me more than 25 years ago, long before digital mattered. It’s still true today: if the product’s not right, nothing matters. If the product is right, everything matters. That everything now includes staying ahead of the consumer digitally. We’ve gone from a generation that saw technology as a skill, to one that doesn’t see it at all – it’s so natural it's become instinct. This shopper lives in a world where digital doesn’t just define shopping habits - it defines the way they live.

We all know the stress of seasonal shopping can make the holidays anything but merry for consumers.

However, there are a few key customer experience features retailers can offer to help make this time of year bearable, if not downright happy, for beleaguered shoppers. The holiday customer experience should be:

App-centric

Although numerous players have entered the mobile payment arena in recent months, Walmart Pay is poised to be much more disruptive to the mobile payment landscape