What does the retailer of the future look like?
At the turn of the millennium, technology reporters and futurists predicted that the rise of online retailers like Amazon would spell certain doom for brick and mortar retailers. They assumed that consumers would be hesitant to leave the comfort of their couches when they could buy anything they want on the web and have it delivered to their doorstep days later. In truth, the future of shopping wasn’t that simple.
While e-commerce has exploded in popularity, driven forward by added conveniences afforded by smart mobile devices, retailers have adapted to their increasingly tech-savvy customers in new and innovative ways. By bridging the gap between physical and digital storefronts, retailers can design engaging and memorable app-enabled customer experiences beyond a simple “add to cart” button. For many retail brands, extending their relevance and necessity into the internet age means shedding the false “e-commerce versus brick-and-mortar” dichotomy and beginning to embrace the integration of both.
The customer’s guide to the galaxy
Native applications for retail that serve as always-connected and always-updated mobile directories seem to be a natural extension of smartphones’ role as mapping and research tools, allowing them to offer guidance and directions throughout the various sections of a store. Mobile apps from major retailers have long offered store locations and internal layout information, but new advancements in location-aware technologies can take these functions much further.
To that end, many retailers have begun adopting Apple’s iBeacon platform for indoor proximity sensors to empower complementary apps and mobile services within their stores’ walls. Designed to use low-energy Bluetooth to conserve battery power, iBeacon can notify compatible nearby smartphones with a push notification or specific in-app functions—for example, providing details about the product display directly in front of the customer.
This kind of behavior prediction has helped many retailers enhance their mobile app user experience designs, allowing them to suggest common behavior patterns based on time and the user’s location. Apple’s own retail app, Apple Store, completely changes its interface as a customer walks into an Apple Store location. Instead of serving images of featured products on the company’s online store, the Apple Store app pivots to show information about nearby merchandise and buttons to schedule a service appointment at the Genius Bar. This kind of contextual feature prioritization demonstrates an understanding of customers’ needs and elevates the app’s functions to the foreground when they are most valuable.
These approaches will only become more powerful with the release of iOS 8. Thanks to new app recommendations that appear on the bottom-left corner of the iOS 8 lockscreen, retailers can broadcast their apps’ existence to iPhone users entering their store. Retail giants like Nordstrom and Macy’s have leveraged their early adoption of iBeacon equipment to begin implementing this feature in their locations around the world. Now, mobile apps can sense when and where you enter a store, and instantly provide timely recommendations and pertinent information right on your mobile device lock screen.
Ring me up, Scotty
Jack Dorsey’s Square card reader has revolutionized mobile payments by allowing anyone to accept debit and credit card payments on their smartphone. A fledgling industry of mobile point of sale replacements, including competitive products from Intuit and newcomer Amazon, all strive to make credit card payments cheaper and simpler for small business owners. But just as Square enabled an entire new class of shops, food trucks, and cafés to cheaply and conveniently accept a wider range of payment methods, similar products aimed at corporate retailers could replace traditional point of sale systems altogether. As large retail chains invest in app-based point of sale solutions that scale to their immense volume, the register of the future is evolving to look entirely different.
In fact, massive retailers like Urban Outfitters and Victoria’s Secret have begun experimenting with mobile devices as point of sale systems at any location on their store floors, allowing employees to seamlessly ring out a customer’s purchase without stepping over to a stationary register. The ability to swipe a customer’s credit card where they stand is enabled by proprietary point of sale apps running on low-end iOS or Android devices, but has a massive customer impact. Not only do stateless point of sale systems help support the continuity and friendliness of customer interactions, but they also ensure that customers don’t get cold feet while waiting in a long line.
Apple takes this convenience a step further in their retail stores. Today, customers can use the EasyPay function of its Apple Store app to purchase an accessory using their iPhone and Apple ID payment information without ever talking to a salesperson. Mobile self-service is valuable in Apple’s crowded stores, but the app-enabled self checkout model makes sense in other venues as well. In fact, many retailers allow online orders to be fulfilled and retrieved in their retail locations, blurring the lines between e-commerce and brick and mortar even more.
By focusing on new tools that disregard barriers between digital and physical storefronts, retailers can build user experiences that allow their customers to engage with their products however they want to—and make purchases when and where it makes sense for them. When retailers empower their customers with truly useful mobile experiences that understand their intentions and adapt to accommodate them, the customers aren’t the only ones who benefit—brick and mortar gains an experience design weapon against the “add to cart” mentality.