Glynn Davis catches up with some of the Retail Business Technology Expo exhibitors
The Logic Group, Ogone, Cegid and Star Micronics give their views on current and future developments.
The Logic Group connects with contactless
As purchasing journeys become ever more complicated there is a need for retailers to interact with their customers over all the various channels they use when shopping. This inevitably includes mobile as it is increasingly recognised as the link between the different channels.
Mark Kusionowicz, marketing director at The Logic Group, says: “We are being told by retailers that they want a stronger interaction with their customers and their journey. They want to integrate the whole customer experience across all the channels. Previously this interaction was just at the point-of-purchase but now retailers want to also do it pre and post purchase.”
This led The Logic Group to team up with NFC software and systems firm Vivotech that Kusionowicz says will enable it to initially engage with customers through an opt-in voucher distribution proposition. “Since the mobile phone is carried around with you this will be a way of giving offers to people,” he says.
Although there is much talk of mobile phones as payment devices Kusionowicz suggests that the use of mobile phones for vouchers as well as for tying into retailers’ loyalty programmes will be the pre-cursor to any widespread payment activity.
He believes the real power of mobile devices with NFC capability will be when ‘one touch’ infrastructures are in place because a customer could accept an electronic voucher on their phone, make the payment, and also have their loyalty programme automatically updated from a single touch of their device against an NFC reader in-store.
The international e-commerce opportunity needs a solid payments platform
With increasing numbers of retailers looking to extend their online presence into other countries these are buoyant times for payment service providers with international capabilities.
Habib Ansari, business development executive at Ogone, says: “More and more retailers are looking to international expansion and cross-border trade as they look to target overseas customers and grow their e-commerce operations.”
He finds retailers of all sizes now have the overseas opportunity in sight. “We are seeing big ones already doing it, the medium-sized merchants starting to do it, and the smaller ones thinking about it,” says Ansari.
He suggests retailers looking to grow internationally need to understand the local banking industry in each country because each one differs greatly: “Outside the UK there are lots of payment methods and so merchants need to find out what payment methods they should adopt.”
Ogone benefits from its experience accepting numerous payment methods – as many as 80 – around the globe, and from having the integration software for their easy adoption by retailers. It also has relationships with acquiring banks around the world, and numerous subsidiary companies where it has experienced people on the ground.
“Many other payment firms do not have local people to provide assistance to retailers so it is not as easy for merchants to roll out [their e-commerce capabilities],” says Ansari.
Mobile payments and in-store kiosks are in big demand
Mobile payment devices and kiosks providing ‘endless aisles’ are being added to the toolkit of software provider Cegid whose extensive international footprint will enable these solutions to be quickly rolled out to retail stores around the globe.
Andy Cairns, country manager for the UK at Cegid, says kiosks are being implemented by the likes of Nespresso in various countries including Portugal and Switzerland, and such a solution is also being developed for France-based childrenswear brand Orchestra that has a concession in Selfridges.
In addition, Cegid is working on an iPod-based payment device that will utilise the forthcoming Chip and Pin-enabled ‘sleeve’ type pieces of hardware from Ingenico and Verifone that will give the Apple unit the capability to accept card payments in the UK.
This follows a trial in the US where a retailer is using similar technology – without the Chip and PIN element. “There is huge demand for this. We’ve always had the queue busting element of mobile devices but customers still had to go to the till. But with these solutions they can also pay through them,” says Cairns.
Such solutions will be available to use around the world because one of the advantages of Cegid, according to Cairns, is that its global footprint enables it to provide strong support to merchants venturing into new markets.
This has been useful to Ted Baker as it utilises Cegid’s core Point-of-Sale infrastructure – including software, hardware, support and training – for its international expansion including recent moves into Hong Kong and Japan.
Its ability to send teams into new markets to “create country booklets” and to also tap into its extensive partner network is proving a key advantage as retailers seek to broaden their operations into new regions.
Cegid also supplies its core solutions to Asics, which has a disparate store network – including four stores in the UK, three in Spain and one in Portugal. “There is not a concentration of stores in any country and so there are not many suppliers who can support this. But our infrastructure allows the support of these types of store network.”
Mobile printers will remain a niche market with advent of HTML 5
Mobile Point-of-Sale is emerging fast and will soon be commonplace, but to date it is being let down by the printing capabilities as mobile printers are typically slow and the paper roll is small.
Simon Martin, director and general manager of Star Micronics, says he is looking beyond mobile printers: “Retailers can have a tablet device or an iPhone for mobile PoS, but then they should be linked to the established printers in-store.”
At present this is possible to implement by bigger retailers who have the necessary resources in their IT departments to develop proprietary software, but Martin foresees the emerging HTML5 language (that restructures and presents content for the internet) as the route to being able to send data to printers (and to other devices) in an open manner for all size of retailer.
“You can get a web page to act as an application and send it to a printer. It puts the browser on the tablet and avoids having to hold the application on the device. By the end of 2012 it [HTML5] will be compatible across all devices,” explains Martin.
He still acknowledges a continued role for mobile printers – for people on the road, for occasional use and for queue-busting – but believes it is a “niche in terms of the retail market”.
He adds: “Tesco use mobile printers for re-pricing stock for markdowns and this will not disappear but we see the future as connecting the devices (such as tablets) with existing hardware [printers].”
