What Happens When Your Store Doesn’t Have Mobile POS?!

My shopping experience started out great on that Labor Day weekend.  I was headed to the mall with my best friend to check out all of the sales that were going on. It doesn’t get much better than that, but it can definitely get worse, and it did.

First we went into The Gap store.  It was bustling with a lot of customers but very few sales people.  My friend and I went our separate ways in the store.  I found a bunch of clothes to try, weeded out what I didn’t want, then headed to the register to pay.  

My friend had already checked out and told me that it took forever, due to the fact that there was a long line of people at each register.   

She went to a different register and encountered the same problem. I glanced around at the three registers in the store and determined that the lines had about the same amount of people waiting.  

So I went to the nearest one and waited, and waited, and waited. Due to the fact that they had sales going for the holiday weekend, plus discount coupons that had been mailed out, it took forever to get through the line. I noticed there were three salespeople on the floor walking around tidying up. 

Each counter had two registers and I wondered why they were not helping people check out. I’ve been in businesses where each sales associate has an iPod on their waistband and can check out a customer anywhere in the store. 

I was flabbergasted as to why such a big chain store did not have this service.  If the prices weren’t so good and I didn’t want the clothes so badly, I would have left. 

It also would have saved tons of time when I was in the dressing room waiting for the sales associate to find another size for me. After what seemed like forever, (after all, what is there to do in a dressing room alone?), she came back to inform me that they didn’t have the size I wanted. Another ten minutes wasted. 

My patience was wearing thin, but we decided to go to a shoe store that we saw on the way here because we both needed shoes. This would turn out to be our second mistake.

Steve Madden has some very cute, but some-what expensive shoes.  This store was even busier than The Gap, full of women ready to spend a lot of money on a lot of shoes.   After finding a gorgeous platform-shoe, I approached the salesperson and asked if they had it in my size and the color that I wanted. 

She told me she would have to go check, but she couldn’t leave the front until another salesperson came out from the back.  So began my long odyssey of waiting.  After about ten minutes she was tired of waiting herself and went to check.  

She actually brought out what I asked for but it was a little too big so I asked if they had it in a half size smaller? Again, I waited until it was her “turn” to go into the back room of the store because they were under staffed. 

Another ten minutes goes by. Miraculously she had the shoe I wanted, in the size that fit and the color I wanted. I made the mistake of feeling better about this shopping experience before I saw another shoe style that I liked. Big mistake.   

We had already been in the store at least a half an hour, waiting for twenty of those minutes, now I had to ask myself, ‘was it worth my time to wait AGAIN?’  

All I can say is that cute shoes can drive a woman to irrational behavior! I approached another salesperson. The salesperson that helped me originally had apparently fallen into the abyss that was their back room.  

I apologized to my friend for the long wait; of course she said it was fine.  I asked for what I wanted, and then promptly sat down for what I knew would be another wait.  

This time it took fifteen minutes to find out they didn’t have my size or the color I wanted.  

You would think this would have deterred me from asking the next question, but it didn’t. I had to know if they had it at another store? The salesperson had to use the only phone in the store to call another store to find out, but the manager was on the only phone trying to get a voice authorization for a credit card. 

Another salesperson was attempting to process a return, I say attempting because she was not having much success.  So AGAIN, I waited.  We were at a complete standstill and I was thinking about leaving at that point. 

Then I became angry at the fact that I just spent a lot of money for crappy service and here I was waiting to GIVE them more of my money.  Then I decided to return the shoes I had just bought, but I couldn’t do that either because the only register the store had was being used.  

I’ve gone through security screening to board a plane in less time than this was taking! My friend assured me that this was o.k. with her and she said just to relax and wait.  I waited, but I was not relaxed.  

The next fifteen minutes played out like a very, very bad comedy.  The girl on the register needed to use the phone, the manager, who was on the phone, needed to use the register.  I think you can get the picture, as I’m sure we have all experienced the same episode of errors.  

All I could think about was how easy, quick and efficient this whole shopping experience would have been if these stores had mobile pos systems.  

I gleaned from this that if I have a choice between two stores to go shopping in, I will definitely go to the store with the mobile pos system.  

This experience really hit home with me by emphasizing the fact that customer service is extremely important in this economy and stores that offer better customer service and a better customer experience will be the stores to survive.

Tracy Brent-Berry Mobile Solutions V.P.  ABC Mobile Pay – tracy@abcprocessing.net  - 661-259-2185 – http://www.abcmobilepay.com 

Mobile POS To The Rescue!

Visualize the following scene that almost all of us have experienced at one time or another. The following actually happened to me. I happened to be at my local department store around 6:00 in the evening, on a Friday, having just arrived after leaving the office on my way home. 

I need a new pair of burgundy slip-on shoes, like what were once called penny-loafers, because they’re comfortable and good looking, kind of a classic and they go with the suit I’m going to be wearing. 

I parked the car in a surprisingly full lot and sprang up the escalator steps to the 2nd floor shoe department where I see people of all ages milling about shopping for back-to-school clothing and supplies.

Because I’m flying out to a business convention early tomorrow, I’ve decided to ‘pull the trigger’ and quickly get what I need. I need to get in and out in a jiffy because I’m picking up my wife for a nice dinner together before I leave and she’s made reservations at our favorite steakhouse.

Our reservations are at 7:00 pm and as I approach the shoe section I see that there are more customers than sales clerks and I suddenly begin to get concerned about getting ‘in and out’ in time.

I’ve been here before when a clerk has gone in the back to look for a certain style and because the sales staff is missing, or so it seems, (they’re probably out sick and understaffed) it has taken an interminable amount of time and I've left without making a purchase!

When the clerk finally comes out and says “Sorry, we don’t have it in a size 10.5” and I quickly respond, “What about a 10, or even an 11 maybe?” and the slouch-shouldered response is “I don’t know, I’ll go check!”

This has taken way too long in the past, but because my local department store is equipped with a mobile solution, my buying experience is as pleasant and quick as it can possibly be, phenomenal in fact.

Instead of spending a customer’s valuable time searching for stock and different sizes in a cavernous warehouse of shoeboxes that are piled high to the ceiling, the sales clerk doesn’t leave the impatient customer’s presence.

The clerk merely picks up his mobile POS device, taps a button or two and with lightning-quick speed, ascertains what’s in stock and what sizes are currently available in that style.

What has taken literally 20-30 minutes in the past, engendering negative feelings and emotions in the customer and at the very least a poor customer experience and a lost sale, is now a gratifying and personalized experience.

Instead of an impulsive buying decision evaporating and being lost, I’m now able to accomplish my goal of quickly acquiring the pair of shoes I wanted and getting to my dinner date on time.

The sales clerk whips out his iPod, points it at the barcode and presses the button and it lights up with infrared lines and it scans the barcode instantly. He then accepts the payment card from me and swipes it on the same device.

He immediately hands it over to me and I sign with my index finger right on the iPod (this is the part I really like, it’s so cool) and the clerk presses a button and I’m emailed and/or printed a receipt with my signature embedded on it. My photo can be embedded on the receipt as well, which well help reduce chargebacks.

This is done in the blink of an eye, making me a happy and satisfied customer that will rave about my buying experience to everyone.

This entire transaction is done safely, easily and as fast as a handshake with ABC Mobile Pay, the most robust mobile POS payment solution on the market today and now available to merchants of any size and type.

Interested parties can contact: Rick Berry - rick@abcmobilepay.com - 877-258-5223 – www.abcmobilepay.com

Mobile ‘POS In-a-Box’ Now Available for Merchants

After Apple’s smashing success bringing mobile POS payments to their retail brick & mortar stores and more recently with Square’s stunning popularity, everyone knows about mobile payment processing, it seems a new credit card swiping app is coming online almost weekly now.

But what may not be known is that merchants from small‘mom-and-pop’ stores to large national chain stores with I.T. departments chomping at the mobile bit can now implement their own mobile payments solution.

Merchants can now utilize robust POS features without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and research or millions in developing a custom mobile solution.

‘ABC Mobile Pay’ is an out of the box mobile POS payment solution designed to quickly and easily integrate into existing front end POS systems and back end accounting systems such as QuickBooks, SAP, SAGE, Oracle, Peachtree etc. without the time and resource expenditures typically associated with such an undertaking.

For this reason and because of the robust nature of the POS features provided, ABC Mobile Pay is quickly morphing into the mobile solution of choice for specific retail niche markets that are being developed by building in features specific to the niche.

Mobile devices offer opportunities for deeper customer relationships. For instance, you can now capture the customer’s email address to send a receipt, the customer can also opt-in to join a loyalty program or receive a newsletter. There are more things you can do right in front of the customer that you couldn’t do before.

The benefits of an integrated mobile POS solution

A recent study found that almost half of all retailers are prioritizing POS integration with enterprise systems such as CRM, marketing and inventory management. At the same time, about two-thirds of retailers have identified the mobile POS device as central to this initiative, extending this integrated experience outside of the traditional shopping lane, and onto the selling floor, decreasing wait time, and increasing employee/consumer interactivity.

A rapid evolution of consumer preferences, and the growing consumer dependence on the mobile device have spurred mobile payment apps for swiping and/or keying in credit card transactions and you can find many to choose from in the Google or Apple app stores.

If the respective app store of any mobile device is searched, there are many mobile payment acceptance optionsavailable. But few are truly integrated with an existing enterprise-capablepoint-of-sale system. Most of what’s in the market place is not integrated; it’s kind of generic. Most of the software vendors for mobile solutions do not have something that is deep enough to include full integration with the point of sale.

They aren’t point-of-sale (POS) systems; they just accept payments using an iPhone or some sort of mobile device. It’s no different than the old style dialup terminals that used to be offered by banks, they merely process the transaction over a phone line and aren’t integrating with the point of sale.

In fact, lack of integration between mobile and standard POS environments is a top concern for retailers, according to Marc Ellen, ABC Mobile Pay V.P., a seasoned veteran in the payments space and an expert in the mobile arena, an integrated mobile solution will communicate with the merchant’s point-of-sale system and deliver POS features that merchants are clamoring for.

Ellen says that a non-integrated mobile POS solution is “prehistoric, a thing of the past.”

On the other hand, an integrated system is so brand new and unfamiliar that it scares those responsible for implementing such technology. They think it will cost too much time and money and may think it might best be left to others to iron out the wrinkles.

It’s specifically this type of thinking that may prevent from happening what could prove to be the one single most important thing that changes your business life forever.

We see integrated payments as the next stage, which is where you have a device that seamlessly speaks with the rest of your POS systems and becomes a mobile extension of it.

An integrated mobile solution means a system that communicates with the merchant’s enterprise-wide or location-wide point-of-sale system. That means the mobile POS devices appear to the existing POS systems as just another terminal, if necessary.

Merchants such as service companies, seasonal merchants, small restaurants and so on can now utilize POS features and capture payments on almost any mobile device they might own.

Large and small merchants benefit from an integrated mobile POS solution

Any merchant with a waiting room orarea such as doctors, dentists, veterinarians or even automobile repair shops can capitalize by streaming entertainment to a flat screen T.V. or streaming Pandora to a set of speakers and providing a much needed distraction in theform of entertainment to waiting customers.

Integration of the mobile channel with the POS system may appear in a few different formats. The mobile system may be a stand-alone product capable of being linked with a POS application. Or, the mobile acceptance capability may be a part of the enterprise POS system.

With a non-integrated solution, a merchant may actually create more work by accepting mobile payments. For example, in a restaurant situation that uses a pay-at- the-table mobile device, a non-integrated system forces the server to manually input the payment amount, and then record the payment in the POS system. Then the transactions have to be manually reconciled at the end of the day.

What good is it to accept mobile payments if you have to spend hours trying to reconcile the credit cards with your sales?

ABC Mobile Pay integrates right into the cloud-based POS solution.

For smaller merchants and those with a low volume of payments, a non-integrated system may be acceptable. For merchants with an existing POS system and/or large volumes, integration is the next logical step.

The solution integrates with the merchant’s enterprise system, which may be able to handle sales in the store, from a call center and via online sales. As the mobile application shares the inventorydatabase, all sales personnel have access to the same information and the database tracks sales and transactions for inventory control and accountingpurposes.

With the integrated system, sales staff can use a device that accepts payments at the table in a restaurant or at the door in a retail or delivery environment. Or a customer could place an order online and then come into the store for pickup.

That’s a common multi- channel scenario for retail and restaurants. The payment will seamlessly integrate with the order the consumer has placed either online or in the restaurant or in the retailer’s four-wall environment.

Ellen cited an example of a footwear retailer, Sketchers, in which a mobile POS system connects employees with up-to-the-minute inventory for better customer service. They can quickly determine what style and sizes are in stock.

Integrated mobile POS improves store operations by providing retailers with mobile solutions that drive in-storetraffic, streamline operations, increase sales and enhance the customer experience.

The increasing availability of peripherals such as bar-code scanners, printers, cash drawers, keyboards, mobile cases, audio/video entertainment streaming devices and other accessories coupled with the overall ease of use and world-class quality of Apple offers an exciting new option for in-store mobility for today’s retailers.

An integrated mobile payment acceptance solution is a proven technology available for merchants now

Retailers have seen the phenomenal success of the mobile POS deployment in the Apple stores and want to figure out how they can replicate the Apple experience in their stores and it looks like there’s finally an answer with ‘ABC Mobile Pay in-a-box’.

The solution is enabling retailers to offer a compelling and differentiated service experience in their stores. Mobile POS supports a variety of sales floor functionality, including inventory look-up and transfer, customer data acquisition and line busting. It also facilitates remote printing and can be used with your legacy system printers or wireless printers.

Freed up by the mobile devices, associates can roam the store for line busting inside or outside and offer parking lot or drive-through checkout. With integration into the POS, ABC Mobile Pay can also serve as a mobile returns desk as well as a mobile point-of-sale and for that reason there should never be another line at a point-of-sale in your store(s) again.

Retail sales staff can connect to adatabase and process sales from anywhere in the store with an iPod Touch and a Linea Pro “sled”, the same mobile hardware employed by Apple in its retail stores. The sled adds the ability to scan barcodes and swipe credit cards. Once the payment is approved, customers simply sign on-screen and receive their receipt instantly by email.

Before ABC Mobile Pay, integration between mobile retail and the POS and inventory systems was limited to big-box players with high-priced custom systems. Now store staff can capture the moment when interest in the purchase is at its peak with one-to-one service that builds customer rapport and loyalty.

To be a true mobile payment acceptance system, the integrated solution should connect to a point-of- sale system based in the cloud. Then the mobile device is simply an extension of the POS, communicating with the central database regarding transactions and inventories. That way the payment will seamlessly integrate with the order the customer has placed, whether it’s online, in the restaurant or in the retailer’s four-wall environment.

You can accept payments any place, you don’t have to be tied to the four walls of a store. The mobile device talks to the cloud to process the payment, and also inventories and orders are in the cloud and all information you need to integrate with is in the cloud so you can access it and attach payments from anywhere that you’re located.

Using a cloud-based database simplifies management of information and ensures all POS locations have the same data. The data can be managed from any location with Internet access. Once the inventory is in the cloud, every store that sells from the inventory has only the single up-to-the-minute list. When you’re looking at reporting or rolling up the store’s data to look at profitability, it’s automatic, there’s nothing else to integrate or copy data from.

Mobile acceptance takes advantage of the consumer habit to use credit and debit cards for payment, but makes it easier for merchants to use and increases consumer convenience.

It can reduce merchant fees on transactions, help restaurants turn tables, help retailers complete more sales, increase security and provide better customer service, Mobile POS is something that’s practical and affordable today.

Quoting Chetan Sharma’s ‘How Mobile Will Change The Way We Spend’,

“It is very clear that mobile will be at the center of human evolution for years to come. Mobile collapses time and distance and as such impacts every facet of our lives. While wehave come to know the mobile phone as a communications device, their role in our daily lives has been expanding. From checking emails, paying for tickets, sending money transfers, taking pictures of your kids, watching soccer World Cup live, checking commodity pricing, to emergency response to mHealth (mobile health), mobile devices have become an essential tool to help us navigate our day. As we alluded to earlier; it is not just the traditional phones that have cellular connections these days; we are slowly but surely moving into an era where a majority of electronic devices from small tags to giant billboards will have a communication channel that both machines and humans can interact with.

Mobile also plays a key role in how we go about the most basic transaction in a given day that keeps the economy humming – spend.”

Rick Berry – www.abcmobilepay.com - rick@abcmobilepay.com - 877-258-5223