By Alicia Fiorletta, Senior Editor
This time of year, we receive a plethora of emails citing top trends that will dominate industry conversations over the next 12 months.
While some predictions make tremendous headway, others take more time to progress. Mobile is one shining example of that “slow and steady” approach. About three years ago, when I first started working with Retail TouchPoints, we started to hear rumblings about mobile commerce and mobile POS. There were a lot of hypotheticals and potential use cases. There were a lot of people eager to discuss what was possible with mobile, but the success stories were few and far between.
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It has been a long time coming, but I’m finally starting to see mobility come to fruition. Personally, I find it very exciting to see how different retailers are investing in mobile, what has been successful and how they plan to improve their strategies moving forward – whether they’re focused on marketing, commerce or in-store payment.
This year, a lot of the predictions focus on mobility, but its new wave. How the industry will mature and what new trends may branch off from mobile. Tying into mobility is payment, which has become more and more “sexy,” thanks to the breaches of notable retailers like Target and Neiman Marcus.
Below is a selection of retail industry experts and thought leaders, and their top predictions for 2015:
Mobile is the new payment reality: “Growing acceptance of Apple Pay, NFC, Google Wallet and other apps is a key sign that consumers will continue to use their smartphones as a research and payment tool,” said Matt Moog, CEO of PowerReviews. “This trend presents retailers with a whole other shopper marketing vehicle when their consumers are actively considering a purchase in a brick-and-mortar store.”
But retailers need to think beyond “tap-to-pay”: There’s been a lot of rumblings regarding the adoption of NFC. However, Chris Gardner, Co-Founder of Paydiant argues that NFC is a “one-trick pony."
"All [NFC] does is replace the swiping with tapping,” Gardner said. “It can’t do all the great things that play a role in the ideal mobile experience, like offers, loyalty and other interactive capabilities."
There will be no mobile wallet winner: Everyone’s talking about Apple Pay but it seems as though the great mobile payment race will turn into a group activity. Because customers have different preferences and mobile devices, "there should be no ‘either-or’ approach,” Gardner said. “The norm moving forward is that retailers are going to offer a variety of different mobile payment options – much like how we have and use four or five different credit cards."
Mobile will bring online recommendations to the store: We’re living in the age of the ultra-educated consumer, who relies on recommendations shared by friends and like-minded peers online. Ratings, reviews, user-generated photos and videos all are playing a critical role in the online decision-making journey. Mobile can help retailers bring this valuable content to the store, according to Moog.
"The most disruptive opportunity is for retailers to bring customer reviews into brick-and-mortar stores and the overall physical experience,” Moog said. “Virtually, every e-Commerce retailer knows that up to 75% of their consumers won’t buy from them unless there are reviews on the site. But there’s no discussion around how to bring those reviews into the in-store experience.”
Small businesses will cash in on mobile opportunities: There are a variety of tools and solutions entering the retail market designed to help small and medium-sized businesses better compete with their larger counterparts.
“SMBs are picking up on a lot of the trends and technologies large enterprises had access to for years,” said Leo Castro, Director and Business Lead of the Mid-Market Segment at PayPal. And you guessed it: mobile is one of those technologies. With mobile payment solutions, even SMBs have the chance to give consumers more options and send them more relevant coupons and offers.
What trend do you think will dominate in 2015? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
