Mobile Payments-Based Checkout Getting a Facelift

The notion of a mobile checkout stand has been something of an up-and-comer for the last couple of years now. Being able to scan your own purchases from your smartphone by photographing bar codes and then paying for same from a mobile payments interface offers a great chance to save a lot of time and effort, not to mention headache waiting at the checkout line. A new report from Rambus’ retail director Julian Wallis suggests that mobile checkout may have even farther to go.

Where’s there left to go? Some might wonder, and not without reason. After all, the whole point is to just thin out the line at the human cashier, right? Not so, say some; after all, brick-and-mortar retailing has pretty much discovered that it can’t compete with online retailers for price and convenience. When you can pull whatever you want out of Amazon, why go to a store any more? Thus, brick-and-mortar retailers who want to be open this time next year are increasingly looking to what’s called “experiential retail.”

Basically, experiential retail is just what it sounds like: the experience of retail. With the young increasingly motivated by experience rather than goods, in-store demonstrations and other experiences are stepping in. It might be hard to imagine what kind of experience can be made from, say, housewares, until you consider the example of John Lewis in the UK, whose stores are offering cooking demonstrations using those same housewares.

One major point also is the presence of store employees. A hefty 25 percent of women, and 40 percent of men, say being able to speak to a real, knowledgeable person in stores is a main—as in, top three—reason to shop in physical stores.

Thus, we’re starting to see automated tools become something of a specialist tool. With customers clearly preferring at least a certain amount of live person contact and experience in retail, the idea of banishing all employees in favor of technology isn’t going to fly. Mobile payments and mobile checkout can definitely be a part of the picture—especially for simple, staple goods—but the idea of an unmanned retail store won’t work.

As malls start moving toward experiences, and retail stores do likewise, we’re going to see a changed retail front. A vanished one, however, is not likely.