Mobile POS Ranks High in Survey
Motorola Solutions, Inc. has released the findings of a survey that demonstrates increasing interest from retail, hospitality and field service industries for mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) solutions as a core strategy for improving customer service. Retailers in particular showed a strong interest in deploying mPOS solutions over the next couple years to provide more personalized service and payment convenience while gaining countless opportunities to close the sale.
Retailers are embracing mPOS pilots and trials to eliminate the high cost of traditional cash registers and accept customer payments – including magnetic stripe and chip and PIN-based credit, debit, gift and loyalty cards, as well as near field communications (NFC) payments via mobile phone – wherever and whenever needed. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed even plan to incorporate the ability to take cash as part of their mPOS operations. The mPOS allows businesses to offer customers brand new conveniences that improve the quality and speed of service and increase loyalty.
The survey was fielded from December 2011-February 2012, targeted to full-time experienced employees in the retail, hospitality and field service industries in North America, United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Key Findings
· Sixty-six percent of respondents are interested in mPOS
· Forty-two percent of retail respondents are currently piloting or starting trials within the next 36 months, and the majority is focused on using mPOS for sales associates on the store floor or line-busting.
· More than seven in 10 (71 percent) retailers that indicated interest in mPOS are using or planning to use it to improve customer service and also intend to provide access to inventory management (51 percent), pricing (48 percent) and merchandise returns (42 percent) applications.
· Sixteen percent of surveyed retailers currently have an mPOS solution deployed, while less than 9 percent have completely mobile or portable checkout systems.
· On average, retail respondents anticipated replacing more than 36 percent of their fixed POS as a result of migrating to an mPOS.