HOW TO ENSURE MOBILE POS SUCCESS Mobile POS is here, and many retailers are using it to their competitive advantage. Here’s what you need to know to gain advantages of your own.
CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................................... 3 How To Ensure A Successful Mobile POS Pilot/Rollout ............................................ 5 Set Clear Goals And Objectives ............................................................................................................... 5 Establish A Multi-Disciplinary Dedicated Payment Team ......................................................................... 7 Define Product Requirements................................................................................................................... 7 Select The Right Partners....................................................................................................................... 10 Measure The Results Of The Test.......................................................................................................... 11
Mobile POS: Why Now Is The Time ........................................................................... 12 About VeriFone ........................................................................................................... 13
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INTRODUCTION The amount of recent press and research dedicated to the adoption of mobility in retail is dizzying, in part because there are so many multi-disciplinary applications for mobile technology, and in part because so many of those applications are putting up big returns for early adopters. Much of this attention is focused on
“Mobile POS solutions are poised to reach 80% market penetration by 2014.”
back office applications, and recently even more of it is focused on retail-related consumer mobile device and application adoption. Meanwhile, a handful of retailers are quietly enjoying significant benefits from another form of mobile technology – mobile POS. Mobile POS solutions are a significant contributor to a healthy market for POS adoption. IHL says POS spending grew 6.9% to $15.4 billion last year, and mobile POS solutions are poised to reach 80% market penetration by 2014. Why are mobile solutions fueling reinvestment in retail POS systems? The sources of return that retailers are realizing on the adoption of mobile POS include:
Shelf Space Optimization Changing store formats and a challenging economy are forcing retailers to maximize merchandising space, and the front of the store is prime merchandising real estate. By migrating POS activity from large check stands and self-checkout units to fully-functioning mobile POS devices, retailers are opening up the best merchandising space in their stores for the display and promotion of high-margin products. Many have greatly reduced the overhead and expense of purchasing and maintaining extra registers that are only needed during high volume times of the year.
Better / More Efficient Sales Turn Equipped with mobile POS technology, associates are complementing checkout lines and increasing customer throughput. Shorter lines mean shorter waits and no more lost customers.
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Line Busting Mobile POS allows you to scan items and collect card payments as customers wait on line, allowing you to reduce customer abandonment and handle peak selling times more effectively.
ROI on POS Itself When you can achieve better functionality from an investment of $5,000 than you can from an investment of $10,000, you’ve cut the time to realizing ROI on that investment in more than half.
Harder to quantify yet potentially more valuable from a customer experience standpoint, retailers are improving the customer experience with mobile POS by:
Consultative Selling / Increased Basket Size Giving the associate mobility at the POS creates a more personal interaction with the customer, creating a seamless means of suggestive and up-selling. Associates are empowered with customer, product, and inventory information that help close sales and improve customer service.
Closing Sales on Big-Ticket Items Where They’re Displayed Mobile POS allows associates to improve customer service by allowing completion of big-ticket transactions in a personal manner.
Assisting Customers on the Store Floor With mobile POS, the confines of the check stand are eliminated, allowing associates to efficiently assist customers in in the aisle, fitting room, or anywhere in the store.
Differentiation — The “Wow” Factor Multifunctional connected devices create the perception that associates can “do anything,” from looking up inventory to checking on prices to transferring goods to completing POS transactions. This elevates the retailer’s brand standing in the eyes of its customers.
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HOW TO ENSURE A SUCCESSFUL MOBILE POS PILOT/ROLLOUT Deploying any store-level technology on multifunctional devices placed in the hands of your store associates requires some special considerations. To ensure a successful mobile POS pilot or roll-out, retailers must:
Set clear goals and objectives
Establish a multi-disciplinary, dedicated payment team
Define clear product requirements
Select the right partners
Develop a comprehensive project plan
Measure the results of the test.
Set Clear Goals and Objectives First, it’s profoundly important that retailers set clear plans and objectives for the rollout. “Without full-throttle buy-in
Are the devices expected to displace traditional/static
from store operations, mobile
POS systems?
POS will not succeed.
If so, does the Mobile POS support all transactions and
Fortunately, research shows
payment types supported by the traditional POS system? If
that store ops are the most
not, what are those discrepancies and how will they be
bullish on mobile technology.”
handled?
Are they being deployed to handle the transaction of only specific merchandise (i.e. big-ticket items, bulky items, etc.)? How will those items be identified? How will consumers be told where to pay for these items? What if the consumer has other items to pay for? Do you tag your merchandise with RFID security tags? How will those be deactivated with mobile POS?
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Will they be capable of handling multiple tenders? If so, which? How will you handle customers who want to pay with cash or check? Have you considered payment option support for the sight impaired?
Which stores will be your tests, best representing chain wide demographics? What do you need to prove in your pilot? Should stores be dispersed geographically, demographically, by store concept? What differences between your stores exist that may impact a mobile POS deployment? Be sure to test in any store that may have an impact.
Who will have access to/use of the devices? All sales associates, specially trained associates, managers? How will you control the mobile POS assets to prevent theft or loss?
How will you manage distributed device software updates? Mobile POS has different requirements than fixed POS for networking and software updates. Can you modify your existing process/systems, or do you need new ones?
What will your receipt issuing process look like? E-mailed electronically? Deviceintegrated printer? Service desk? If email, how will you collect email addresses? If a portable printer, how do you integrate to it? How can you print to a single mobile POS printer at the service desk that customers can walk to to obtain a receipt?
How will your scan/bag process work with mobile transactions? Do the items you sell require a bag, or a “sold” sticker? Or is a receipt required to leave the store with merchandise? If you email receipts, are they done in real-time so a consumer can prove purchase?
How will you support the mobile POS system? The consumerization of IT brings the benefits of easy to use interfaces and lower costs, but also brings the challenges of supporting open devices. How will you manage and control them? What about hardware repair?
How will you determine success for your mobile POS initiative or pilot? What specific metrics do you plan to measure? Have you measured baseline metrics? Will you do consumer surveys to gauge interest and acceptance of mobile POS? Are you planning on other hard benefits like faster throughput, higher tickets, increased order size? If so, how will you measure the impact of mobile POS?
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Formulating answers to these questions and a set of your own will help you determine your objective, without which it’s impossible to develop a plan and measure your success.
Establish a Multi-Disciplinary Dedicated Payment Team It’s also imperative that you identify and assign a dedicated project team with representatives from every stakeholder department. The team should comprise, at a minimum:
Store Operations, the execution enablers. Without full-throttle buy-in from store operations, mobile POS will not succeed. Fortunately, research shows that store ops are the most bullish on mobile technology.
IT, the gatekeepers. IT must be involved from the get-go at the bytes, speeds, and feeds levels to ensure flawless
“The customer-facing splash
execution of the technical aspects and to weigh in on
a mobile POS rollout can
scalability in terms of your technology roadmap.
make is a terrible thing to waste. Make sure the
Marketing, the face-savers. The customer-facing splash a mobile POS rollout can make is a terrible thing to
prepared to help you
waste. Make sure the marketing department is prepared to help you capitalize on the popularity of mobility and maximize a major brand image opportunity.
marketing department is
capitalize on the popularity of mobility and maximize a major brand image
LP/Security, the enforcers. LP will create and maintain
opportunity.”
controls around device responsibility and security, enabling a level of control that ensures lost or stolen devices don’t contain the “keys to the kingdom.”
C-Suite, the final-sayers and hammers. Corporate support and a well-positioned objective from the C-suite are the catalyst of and key ingredients to any successful technology initiative.
Define Product Requirements The application and hardware you choose have significant implications on mobile POS success or failure. Retailers considering mobile POS solutions should evaluate consumer-accepted hardware such as iOS devices or smart phones to mitigate the risk of obsolescence, reduce overall costs, and accelerate ROI.
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Empowering sales associates to complete transactions on the floor is just one opportunity presented by Mobile POS. Allowing
“There’s a lot you can
full access to the rich information and feature set of the traditional
argue is wrong with
POS from anywhere on the store floor also allows associates to
PCI, but I give them
influence sales as customers are making purchase decisions.
credit for not rushing
Most retailers will benefit from direct POS integration for full order
this. There are a lot of
management – including merchandising, product information,
different mobile devices,
pricing, warranty contracts, and so on – especially in this age of
and each is very different,
consumer intelligence. This approach gives the associate a
and they need to look
seamless experience with an interface that looks and works just
carefully at each platform.”
like the traditional POS. The fuller the integration, the better the
-Avivah Litan, Gartner
opportunity to build loyalty and customer satisfaction. Direct integration between mobile POS applications and back office systems also creates advantages from a management and support standpoint. Direct POS integration will reduce support and maintenance resource requirements, eliminating the potential need for support and maintenance of two POS systems. The customer expectation is that the sales associate will have access to the tools and information needed to serve them wherever the interaction takes place. To minimize training requirements, confusion, and customer frustration, retailers should make every effort to mirror the workflow of the fixed POS on the handheld device. Cross-channel consumerism is another important consideration in the mobile POS purchasing decision. Consumers want stores to have visibility into their online activity, including their shopping carts, to facilitate “research online, buy in store” shopping. Consumers also expect associates to help them find out of stock merchandise in other stores or channels. And they expect the merchandise you sell online to be available, or at least accessible, from the store with your associates’ assistance. Your mobile POSempowered associates should be able to facilitate these new customer service demands, and direct integration with your POS system is the best way to do so. Security is an important concern when implementing any POS solution; with mobile POS, that concern reaches new levels. With fixed POS, the primary concerns are employee access to registers and adherence to credit card security standards. Mobile POS environments introduce the same concerns, but with greater risks given the use of the in-store Wi-Fi network.
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Transmitting consumer credit card information using a Wi-Fi network is inherently risky. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) have begun work on specific provisions and additional processes that must be implemented in order for a retailer to be allowed to take credit and debit cards as tender using a mobile POS system. Full PCI standards are anticipated from the PCI Council by year’s end (2011). In an interview with CSO magazine, Pete Lindstrom, research director at Spire Security, lamented the Council’s timeframe on mobile payment standards. “This means instead of the industry making riskbased judgments about a payment platform, we have to wait for very detailed examination. It’s time consuming and lagging.” But others disagree that retailers should wait on the PCI Council to move forward with their plans. “The dedicated devices are easy to certify,” says Avivah Litan, an analyst who covers financial fraud, authentication, and fraud detection. “There's a lot you can argue is wrong with PCI, but I give them credit for not rushing this. There are a lot of different mobile devices, and each is very different, and they need to look carefully at each platform.” As do retailers who don’t want to be caught on their heels, a position they very well may be in by the time the Council prescribes its standards. In the meantime, industry cornerstone payment solution provider VeriFone stands by the security afforded by its PAYware Mobile Enterprise POS offering. The solution features VeriShield Total Protect – E2EE (end-toend encryption) and tokenization technology that renders it PCI PED 2.0 and EMV level 1 and 2 approved. The wireless network should use strong encryption through HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) and should adhere to the PCIDSS standards for transaction management. The PCI PA-DSS states that “If the payment application sends, or facilitates sending, cardholder data over public networks, the payment application must support use of strong cryptography and security protocols such as SSL/TLS and Internet protocol security (IPSEC) to safeguard sensitive cardholder data during transmission over open, public networks.” The mobile device application should enable employee tracking through to the transaction level. Once the transaction is complete or cancelled, the system should delete the consumer’s card information from memory. From this point, direct integration with the fixed POS will ensure the transaction follows the standard POS workflow. Because of the sensitive information transmitted via mobile POS devices, user authentication and tracking is extremely important. While retailers can leverage the aforementioned advantages of consumer devices such as those running on iOS, they must also invest in a remote management software solution.
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This will simplify the deployment and maintenance of applications across the devices and deliver ongoing asset tracking. Some software solutions even enable tracking through GPS to pinpoint device movement. Of course, your hardware must have the features that make all this functionality and security possible. The VeriFone PAYware Mobile Enterprise solution is built for iOS devices, and its features include:
Card encryption sleeve
PIN pad with TRSM
Bar code imager
End-to-end encryption and tokenization
NFC payment support
EMV chip and PIN support
Electronic signature capture
Select the Right Partners Finally, to ensure the ongoing performance of your mobile POS plan, deployment, application, and device, it’s imperative that you pick the right partner(s). With the quick movement of the mobile retail market has come an onslaught of solution providers looking to capitalize. Retailers must carefully and fully evaluate their options before committing to ensure the chosen solution is scalable and secure and that the chosen vendors are proven and stable. Look for fiscally responsible companies with longevity in the marketplace and proven success with mobile technology. Equally importantly, seek companies that have demonstrated a commitment to data security and device management. In consideration of specific companies, analyze their customer bases and business/technology partners, and ask for references. You won’t find a single vendor that can meet all your mobile POS needs, but your partner community should have experience working with one another and should comprise a proven, tightly integrated solution ecosystem.
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Measure the Results of the Test You can’t improve what you can’t measure. It’s important to measure success against clearly stated goals before moving out of the pilot stage. Only through measurement can you validate assumptions, quantify benefits, and determine ROI. Measurement will also help you identify opportunities for improvement in the enterprise-wide mobile POS rollout.
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MOBILE POS: WHY NOW IS THE TIME There is no dissension among industry analysts, organizations, and observers: mobile devices and applications are the transformative retail technologies of our time. More importantly, retailers are confirming that consensus by rapidly adopting mobile technologies. In its 2011 State of the Store Manager report, Integrated
“Upwards of 50% of specialty
Solutions For Retailers magazine’s survey of store managers
retailers are looking to deploy
found that 76.3% agreed with the statement “mobile technology
handheld POS devices to
makes me more efficient,” and 43% of retailers with single-site
replace many of their
annual sales of $10 million or more say they’ve already deployed
standard POS systems,”
some form of mobile POS application. IHL says that trend
-Greg Buzek, IHL
persists and is even moving rapidly down-market. “Our recent research studies found that upwards of 50% of specialty retailers are looking to deploy handheld POS devices to replace many of their standard POS systems,” says IHL president Greg Buzek. The NRF Mobile Blueprint is a comprehensive guide to all things mobile in retail. With oversight from ARTs (Association for Retail Technology Standards) Director Richard Mader and authored by scores of seasoned retail technology experts, the Blueprint states definitively that “there is no doubt that mobile technology for retail is no longer a trend but a necessary way of doing business.” As you navigate these in-store technology necessities of the 21st century, ensure their long-term viability by partnering with the most trusted name in payments.
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ABOUT VERIFONE With decades of experience as the undisputed leader in the retail POS payments space and with more global banking relationships than any other provider, VeriFone is well positioned to take retailers confidently and securely into the realm of mobile POS. The PAYware Mobile Enterprise solution from VeriFone is an ideal choice because:
PAYware Mobile Enterprise is PCI compliant, incorporating end to end encryption and tokenization along with a tamper resistant security module for the most advanced card data protection available.
PAYware Mobile Enterprise complies with Visa Best Practices for Mobile Payment Acceptance Solutions.
Few other mobile POS solutions support PIN debit.
PAYware Mobile Enterprise is the only mobile POS incorporates an integrated commercial-grade 1D/2D bar code imager.
Near Field Communications (NFC) payment is supported.
PAYware Mobile Enterprise is certified to meet global EMV requirements.
The VeriFone Mobile Framework (VMF) integration tool is available for use by developers for the implementation of other payment applications.
PAYware Mobile Enterprise offers paperless receipts via e mail, or if a paper receipt is required, an optional Bluetooth™ printer with iAP support.
The devices can be charged using a gang charger with the ability to charge up to five devices at a time.
VeriFone offers full services and support with Buyer Protection and Priority Exchange programs.
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VeriFone Flexible Managed Services Program options are designed to help you meet your specific technical and budget requirements.
VeriFone is the largest global provider of payment solutions in the industry, with nearly 3,000 employees and FY2011 sales projected at over $1 billion in revenue. We are fiscally healthy, familiar with high-volume manufacturing, and have resources capable of supporting the most challenging business requirements.
With a complete solution that includes everything your organization needs, PAYware Mobile Enterprise enables you to quickly accept secure anywhere, anytime payments. For more Information on PAYware Mobile Enterprise and VeriFone, go to www.verifone.com/payware-mobile-enterprise
www.verifone.com | 1-800-VeriFone ©2011 VeriFone. All rights reserved. No portion of this document may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of said company. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. VeriFone, the VeriFone logo, MX, MX800, PAYware Mobile Enterprise, and Vx are either trademarks or registered trademarks of VeriFone in the United States and/or other countries. All features and specifications are subject to change without notice. 8/11 Rev B
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