Next on the list is the Mac POS.  The one I spent more time with was LightSpeed (there was another called Checkout).  Here’s a video.  The iTunes-like UI is attractive and intuitive which will be important for the next generation of retail employees.   A more intuitive UI can also help new employees get productive faster and with high turnover rates in retail, this can mean a real return.

Because of the price point of Mac hardware and the dearth of peripherals, I don’t see wide-spread adoption.  I can however see a great fit in certain high-end or high-tech retail environments.

Transaction Tree enables retailers to provide electronic receipts to their customers.  They do this by collecting emails at the POS, combining them with the actual transaction data and enabling retailers to deliver customized emails with both the receipt data and relevant marketing.

Digital Receipt History

In 2000, NCR led creation of the Digital Receipt alliance.  Participating companies were Visa, Office Depot, America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.’s VeriFone division.  The alliance proposed a standard for digital receipts to the National Retail Federation’s technology standards body which now maintains this standard.

So, companies have been working in this space for nearly a decade.   There have been several attempts to approach this more from the consumer-side of the equation – attempting to create demand for a customer ‘receipt repository’ of sorts.   The latest entrant is Intuit QuickReceipts.  Transaction Tree has instead focused on providing technology which captures customer email and transaction data to facilitate emailing of the receipt along with relevant marketing messages.

What’s Changed

A few things are different now and may provide the catalyst for companies like Transaction Tree:

• A large company with significant resources (Intuit) is sponsoring the repository and working with retailers to gain critical mass.  Transaction Tree is partnering with Intuit to populate the database (as is Afterbot).
• Apple already offers email receipts and many customers are getting acclimated to the idea.
• Retailers and their customers are looking for ways to be more ‘green’.
• Retailers need to find new ways to reach customers on a one-to-one basis.  Leveraging receipt data to generate a more relevant offer to customers is one way to do this.

Risks

Collecting receipt information is not a difficult technical problem.    I know of at least one POS company that has an add-on module allowing for email receipts.   I believe Epicor announced something at NRF as well.  If retailers want it, POS companies will be forced to offer it.

The question is, will POS companies and retailers do this themselves as opposed to leveraging a company like Transaction Tree?  Perhaps, but the value to retailers is less in the data collection and more in how that data enables retailers to more effectively reach their customers.  This is not in the core skill set of most POS providers.

Their main competitors are AfterBot, Third Solutions and AllEtronic. Afterbot was the only other one I saw at NRF.

Is the time right for digital receipts?  I think you will see retailers increasingly making this option available to their customers.  Will Transaction Tree be a dominant player?  It’s too early to tell, but if they add value beyond simply email and transaction capture, then they have a shot.

Full Disclosure:  While I have no financial interest, I have informally advised Transaction Tree and have referred them to retailers looking for a solution like theirs.

Photo by Jorge Quinteros

Microsoft Surface has been around for about two years, but this was the first time I’d seen good applications to retail and the customer experience.

Here’s a demo from IdentityMine:

And here’s another by CSG

Interesting way to engage the consumer.

FaceCash is another take on the digital wallet.  From their handout at the show,

“Use FaceCash and the Thinklink network to pay for goods and services at participating merchant stores – all with your iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry or Android phone.  Everything about good old plastic, from rewards to statements, is even better with FaceCash.  It’s easy, and it will save you time and money whether you are buying or selling. “

Here’s how it works (from their brochure at the show):

1. Deposit – the customer deposits money into their FaceCash account allowing them to use the funds anywhere FaceCash is accepted.
2. Present – Each FaceCash account is tied to a unique barcode that can be displayed on a smartphone or self-printed card to identify customers.
3. Scan – as soon as the merchant scans the barcode, the customers face appears on the merchant’s PC or Mac to prevent fraud.
4. Track – Funds are transferred instantly from customer to merchant.  Both the customer and the merchant have complete records available on-line of everything bought and sold.

The team at NRF told me that unlike Square (which also provides a card swipe device for the iPhone ) FaceCash was meant to be like ‘paypal’ for retailers and leverages scanners instead of a proprietary device.

The mobile wallet is something of a holy grail being pursued by mammoth, global companies (e.g., Qualcomm ).  It’s coming, but I don’t think companies like FaceCash will be able to get the critical mass required.  So, while I don’t think FaceCash is the next big thing,  it’s a good illustration of where we are heading.   For independent business owners  FaceCash, Square, Mophie and perhaps Apple itself, all signal a fairly significant change in the cost of being able to accept credit cards.  There will be impact to the incumbent hardware providers in this space as well as the large payment providers – to the benefit of retailers large and small.

Unfortunately, I think the FaceCash guys have a very tough road ahead up against better capitalized, larger competition, but the concept itself is a good example of where things are heading.

Photo credit:  iPhone Mobile Payment 100 Euro by Monty Metzger

I’m not sure how I missed this one.  Thanks to Alan Taetle for pointing it out to me.   I remember seeing their booth at NRF, but it just looked like a bunch of tchotchke’s with an attitude.  Needless to say, I missed this for my top 10 list, but in retrospect this likely would have gotten a top spot.

We’ve been hearing about digital wallets for a long time now.  At CES last week, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs announced Swagg.

According to the PDF I found at Pixelatedeek.com,  “Swagg enables smart, efficient and rewarding transactions on the go.  Swagg allows users to purchase, share and exchange gift cards, receive and redeem offers, view loyalty card points or balances, share content and more – straight from the convenience of a mobile device.”

According to an article by Mike Freeman of the Union tribune, Paul Jacobs (Qualcomm’s CEO) said the mobile-gift-card portion of the Swagg platform should be available before the next holiday season.

There are quite a number of new players in the mobile payments space – Square, Mophie, FaceCash and more traditional players like VivoTech and Verifone.  Swagg is a big play, but Qualcomm is a great company (as is their Atlanta-based subsidiary driving this – Firethorn) with massive resources and global reach.

Swagg has the potential to significantly impact the customer experience as it relates to loyalty and gift cards making them both mobile and social.  Definitely one to watch.

There’s not much on the website yet, but here’s a slick video for your enjoyment.

Recently, I did a post listing the top 10 things that caught my eye at NRF.  Here is more detail on number 10– Ikan.

Ikan is provides a scanner and thin web device designed for the kitchen.  The idea is to scan items as you discard them to create your list which can be sent to a grocer, or accessed for your own use on the web.

On the web site, you can see the current model, but at NRF they were showing the next version which runs Android, allowing more interactive web access.  Here is a short video of the demo I received at NRF.

The benefits for customers would be an easier way to create and maintain your list based on usage.  This in addition to the web and application access demonstrated in the video.  For retailers and manufacturers, there would be benefit in knowing about usage patterns (privacy policy permitting of course) prior to purchase.  The retailer could also provide relevant offers for alternative products based on timing, a map through the store to pick up your items, etc.

Ikan has a number of challenges.  First, the device itself sells for $399.  That’s expensive for a consumer device.  While it can access various applications and websites, I’d rather have a laptop or netbook to do those things.  If I really want the scanner, there are options from around $I79.

Unfortunately for ikan, there is a even better option which is to use applications that allow barcode reading from my smartphone.   For $0.99, I can buy something like GroceryIQ for my iPhone.  The integrated scanning capability (using RedLaser from Occipital) works great and it’s integrated right into the application allowing me to create my list.

What does this mean for Ikan?  Unfortunately, as much as I liked the Ikan guys, I personally wouldn’t shell out $399 for the integrated device when I can have a laptop for the same amount.  Grocery IQ did a great job of scanning and creating my list.

What does this mean for grocery retailers?  Apps like GroceryIQ are going to some degree control the customer and the customer experience if you let them.   It’s time for grocery retailers to create their own mobile apps that add value to the customer in a way that differentiates the brand.

Thank goodness AT&T was down all during NRF 2010.  It allowed me to focus on walking the floor without the distraction of various business associates trying to get in touch with me. 

While I can’t say I didn’t miss something, I was able to cover the entire floor.  Here are the top 10 things I found of interest as it relates to technology which impacts the customer experience.

Very few of these will have a massive impact in the short run.  Some may not even be at NRF next year.  However, I believe they point towards the future of retail technology.  I will follow up with a blog post on each outlining what I believe to be their benefits as well as challenges they will have in achieving mainstream retail adoption.

1. Intel/Microsoft Digital Display
2. Fashionista by Rich Relevance
3. IBM/Cisco Mobile Concierge
4. Modiv
5. IBM Social Media Data Mining
6. Lightspeed by Xsilva
7. Transaction Tree*
8. Identity Mine Retail Map
9. FaceCash
10. Ikan

*full disclosure – I am not an investor, but I have been an informal advisor to Transaction Tree.  And I just happen to like them.

Update – after originally posting this, I learned that I missed Swagg, which would definitely have made the list.   More on them in a follow up post.

Just saw this posted at the Global Retail Executive Council blog.  This could explain the confusion I expressed in my previous post.

Joe Skorupa, Editor-in-Chief, RIS News recently wrote a blog post entitled “Fearless Retail Predictions: Part 2.”  He interviewed a strong panel of industry analysts, technology vendors and one retailer to come up with a list of predictions for 2010.   The predictions were heavily slanted toward the use of mobile and social media technologies. 

However, when you juxtapose these predictions with a recent comment from the RIS/IHL Group Store 2010 Store Systems Study, something is not lining up. 

“In this year’s study, we also asked how retailers use technology to enhance the customer experience. Should technology be used front and center as part of the experience or behind the scenes? Nearly half of the respondents (48%) answered: “We use technology to enable speed and execution, but it is largely invisible to consumers other than speed through checkout.” In other words, the customer experience in the store is not tied to technology.”

I’m confused because I believe that the power of mobile and social media technologies lies in just that – enhancing the customer experience.  This survey is directed heavily at IT personnel (63% of respondents).    Perhaps retail IT executives don’t see mobile and social media technologies as enhancing the customer experience.  Perhaps they are just not involved with how these technologies are being leveraged. 

Based on my experience with retail executives, these tools are being investigated mainly by the marketing department led by ad agencies looking for ways to capitalize on the changing media landscape.    Agencies are proposing mobile applications, couponing services, location-based services, social media campaigns and other creative ways of tapping into the social and mobile scene; all without much IT involvement. 

CIO’s need to get their arms around these marketing efforts – not to control them, but to help the organization understand how to more fully leverage these technologies;  integrating mobile into multi-channel and loyalty efforts, integrating social media into business intelligence efforts.    If left to outside forces, opportunities to leverage these technologies to differentiate the customer experience may be diminished or lost.  When these tools are integrated into the retailers’ infrastructure, they will truly become technology which enables a differentiated customer experience.

According to an article by Greg Kumparak on MobileCrunch yesterday, Mophie, manufacturer of iPhone hardware accessories is getting into the mobile payments business.

While currently a hardware provider only, Greg speculates that Mophie may also be getting into the software side of things.  Should they enter into the payment business, they will be competing head-to-head with Square.

This is another good example of how consumer wireless devices are going to force big changes on traditional hardware and providers in the retail device and payments space.