Although mobile technology can no longer be considered new, with the first iPhone launching approximately seven years ago, smartphones did not really become mainstream until a few years ago. Now, the latest data from comScore suggests the majority of American adults – 173 million people in total – own these devices.
With the latest iPhones poised to support mobile payments, the ball is now in the court of retailers to do a bit of upgrading themselves. With mobile payments also trending toward more mainstream use, retailers need to rethink their point-of-sale solutions, so they will be actively looking for the hardware and software that can help them transact these payments safely and securely.
Implementing mobile payments presents numerous challenges. There are several different mobile payment formats, ranging from near-field communication apps that allow customers to simply tap and go to setups beacon devicves utilizing low energy bluetooth technology. All of these various formats serve different purposes and, realistically, could play a vital role in serving customers who want to pay with mobile devices. For example, one may have a phone with NFC technology, while another may have a phone that needs to use quick response code, merchants need to be able transact all of these different payments. A “One-to-Many” integrated payments solution can be helpful to avoid perpetual development expenditure.
Getting everything on the same page
Of course, beyond simply selecting which mobile payment format is ideal, merchants and developers also face a critical challenge in getting these new solutions to play nice with other existing POS systems. The point of sale landscape is growing increasingly complex, with modern check-out stations featuring a variety of different tools and solutions to transact payments however customers want.
In that regard, merchants will need to carefully consider integrated payments and peripheral management solutions that will help them utilize all of the different solutions in the front-end. An integrated solution can be used to manage all of the different common elements of a check-out station, ranging from receipt printers to cash drawers. Additionally, they can be integrated with all of the different payment solutions to process transactions more quickly.
The rise of mobile payments as a way of transacting purchases has added more technology to the front end, but fortunately new management solutions make it that much easier to keep everything organized and coordinated.
