6 Contactless Payment Solutions for Retailers
Retailers have dozens of ways to go when implementing contactless payments in brick-and-mortar stores. The best option usually depends on the retailer’s size and budget. Smaller businesses tend to rely more on app-based contactless payments and mobile solutions as a way to minimize the costs associated with integrating an entirely new point-of-sale system.
Here are six mobile payment and contactless payment options that retailers can use to help curb the spread of coronavirus inside their stores.
Restaurants Are Using Technology to Bring Back Customers Post-Pandemic
How do local restaurants implement coronavirus-driven changes, and what role will technology play in helping those businesses reemerge from lockdown status?
Statewide regulations, like sanitizing protocols and spacing between tables, are in many ways easier for restaurants to implement because they are clear-cut. Certain diner expectations are harder for restaurants to gauge, and that has presented a new opportunity for technology providers catering to the restaurant market.
Can a Pandemic Inflect Local Commerce Tech?
Could forced adoption of alternative shopping methods like curbside pickup lead to user acclimation? Will millions of shoppers get exposed to the merits of these streamlined options and like what they see? Will new habits be born that sustain throughout normal times?
If so, these technologies — along with virtual-office enablement — could benefit from this period as a blessing in disguise for exposing their value propositions. But who stands to benefit most? We’ve identified five local commerce tech areas to which this could apply.
Mobile Commerce Bounces Back
Companies investing in existing user engagement are smart to do so. According to mobile monetization and marketing company ironSource, the average global cost to acquire a single paid install from an individual user in 2020 is $2.24 — which adds up quickly when you start to scale into thousands or hundreds of thousands of users.
So, while it’s important to keep spending on acquisition, retention and retargeting, informed by smart audience segmentation, are perhaps even more essential to ensuring app marketers are monetizing all of their users.
Location Weekly: PayPal Facilitates Contactless Payments
In this episode of Location Weekly, the Location-Based Marketing Association hosts Vanjo Wandscher, Group CEO, ROQQIO Commerce Solutions.
The team also covers Westfield’s Mall of the Netherlands using LEDs and AR to drive social distancing, MapinHood ensuring social distancing on sidewalks, and PayPal facilitating QR code contactless payment.
As Retail Reopens, Voice Tech Takes Center Stage
Voice technology has been on the verge of going mainstream for nearly a decade. Despite big players like Amazon and Google launching their own smart speakers, and millions of consumers using the devices in their homes, investors in the voice technology space have been patiently waiting for the spark that would set off a new touchless world.
That spark is Covid-19.
Rakuten Ready Gives Merchants Access to Advanced Pickup Technology
Industry-wide curbside pickup has surged 208%, but statistics alone do not tell the complete story. Although large retailers were quick to pivot to a pickup-only strategy, small and mid-size retailers were largely boxed out. That’s because the ordering technology used by many large retailers comes with a price tag that small retailers cannot afford, and implementing the most sophisticated programs requires a level of technological sophistication that SMBs don’t usually have.
Rakuten Ready believes it has the answer to this problem.
Social Conversion Rates Climb During Covid-19
Covid-19 has changed the social media playbook, but brands who’ve been quick to adjust are seeing social conversion rates continuing to climb.
In an analysis of data pulled from more than 120 retail websites, the digital experience solutions company Episerver found that social conversion rates have increased steadily during Covid-19 shutdowns, from 1% in April 2019 to 1.2% in April 2020.
The Importance Of Marketing Localization During Times Of Disruption
In 2020, organization and transparency will be key for retail marketers. In the short term, retailers must identify and optimize existing technologies to stay afloat. In the longer term, the focus should be on evolving shopping behavior and enabling transformation through technology. Knowing that Q3 will be a critical quarter for retailers as Covid-19 lockdown policies begin to lift, retailers must plan their comebacks now, and that begins with a strong digital approach.
Street Fight’s June Theme: Retail Recovery
As the country starts to re-open and recover (some places more quickly than others), we’ll shift our focus to cover specifically how that’s happening. And what better vertical to represent local business recovery than retail? It will be a leading indicator for several other local commerce verticals.
So we introduce our June editorial theme: Retail Recovery. The goal: to chronicle the steps local businesses are taking to reemerge from locked doors and empty streets. Who’s doing what, and what can we learn from them? By “them” we mean businesses and the tech providers that support them.
Big-Box Stores Will Win the Reopening, but Mask Expectations Are High
New consumer insights uncovered by Resonate are painting a picture for what to expect as lockdown restrictions start to lift. According to our latest wave of consumer sentiment research, shopping behaviors are already starting to shift dramatically. But that doesn’t mean consumers are fully ready to resume their previous daily lives, particularly when it comes to venturing into stores.