From SSKs to Mobile Pay: Three Retail Technology Predictions for 2017
Retail in 2016 had its share of ups and downs. While several major businesses filed for bankruptcy, others in the category saw incredible growth, leveraging technology to connect with customers in new and exciting ways. For instance, Walmart tripled its online catalog and opened more stores that allow shoppers to pick up online orders in-person. In an often-cluttered retail landscape, Walmart and others have shown that technology can be a key differentiator.
Looking ahead to 2017, technology will continue to play a major role in the consumer shopping experience. Here are three predictions for the direction of retail technology in the New Year:
Many retailers will adopt SSKs for the first time
Self-service kiosks are mainstays among grocery and convenience store retailers. Essentially, for lower cost “quick-service” shopping experiences, SSKs have replaced the traditional in-store checkout process. However, 2017 could see wider adoption for 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 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 convenience store bubble.
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. 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.
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. 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.
In the immediate-term, SSKs and BOPIS will provide real value to both retailers and consumers. Mobile pay is poised to be more of a slow-burn effort in terms of adoption and POS value. But all three areas are evolving and will continue to do so in 2017.