PYMNTS.com learned firsthand, the advantages of the virtual POS and how a few merchants were able to successfully move store technolog to the Cloud. Merchants were represented by Bill Ballou (Bob’s Discount Furniture), Harel Kodesh (VMWare, Inc.), Rande Willison (TBC Corporation), Robert Fort (Guitar Center), and Stefano Gaggion (Brooks Brothers).
“The Cloud allows merchants to be able to leverage all of the consumer’s wants and needs and helps merchants cater to those exact desires” was a common theme throughout.
Grocer chain Stop & Shop ‘Buddy System’ uses the Cloud to deliver personalized pricing to consumers, and allows the merchant to use gather analytics to the customer’s benefit by catering discounts and coupons to those consumer’s previous purchases.
A Sephora location in New York City as also successfully implemented the cloud by eliminating each of its fixed POS locations and now solely operates on iPads. The panel suggested this will be the wave of the not-so-distant future and one panelist even suggested merchants bring in consulting teams to analyze in store needs with regards to switching to the Cloud. “We have done major analysis on the footprint of our store in regards to the Cloud” cited Rande Willison, noting that consumers prefer not to be side by side when making purchases. Willison suggested that in the case of a credit card being declined, consumers would prefer to be on a mobile checkout where those discretions would be kept hidden.
A common theme throughout both this panel, and the conference, was “mobile is no longer innovative.” In 2010, 11% of merchants described themselves as “innovative,” whereas in 2011 over 50% of merchants think they’re innovative, merely because they’ve adapted to mobile technology. “Merchants are continuing to use technology that was relevant 30 years ago,” stated Moderator Ken Morris (Boston Retail Partners) and are even “making today’s decisions based on yesterday’s news” as the panel hammered home the for merchants to maximize consumer spending, they need to be taking bigger steps in the technology space.
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