Beiträge

The Future of Payments: Which Game Changing Technologies Will Affect the Retail Industry

payments journalWhile our industry – like any other – is facing massive disruption (or re-invention rather in most cases), some changes could lead to a dramatic shift in how things are being done. From a Consumer perspective mostly. The Payments Journal has written a summary and analysis of what is coming up, or better may be coming up, and identifies autonomous cars, augmented reality and AI so mention some. The underlying technologies being available, some being the same as for mobile payments – just that it does not happen on a phone. I find this a piece much worth reading. Find the whole article here. 

Has Pokemon Succeeded Where Retailer Loyalty Apps Failed?

paymentssourceI admit, I have adopted this headline – because I could not possibly come up with a better one. Great job, Payments Source! They published an article which reflects on a phenomenon which has greatly annoyed me some 15 years ago or so – actually I never got it, to be frank. But now, the phenomenon is back and finally I DO get it. Just in a much different sense than a stupid electronic toy that you „pay attention to“, apparently when you lack any other social interaction. 🙂

Today Smombies follow their phones and not seldom are a true traffic hazard – now being steered by an app called Pokemon Go. First of all the good news: You have to move your body to play this app so give it some benefit for fighting obesity. But: you have to stare at your screen constantly which will probably boost the sale of power banks as well as it is in fact a traffic hazard. Anyway, the key thing it does is to make you search – or hunt for – Pokemon, epically ugly manga pieces of crap which you can do whatever with. This treasure hunt is what gets folks on the hook with it.

So why not place the ugly critter in a store, next to the items you want to sell? Not sure this is actually happening but Payment Source does have a point. This might be what all those loyalty apps failed about for so many years – and if thats true the current boot in market valuation for Nintendo is well deserved. Highly interesting and they got ME on the hook with it (while I refrain from playing Pokemon Go). Read for yourself here.

Addition (actually not sure it works) there was this Video on Facebook (in German) which brings back some (ugly) memory. 🙂

 

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Find out more about Resolution Foundry here.

Juniper Research: Beacons drive mobile commerce

According to a study published by Juniper Research, Beacon-powered coupon- and rewards programs proof to work. What may not come as a surprise to the mobile people among us has now a scientific foundation, based for instance on an 8% increase in the sales of Chicken sandwiches at McDonalds using in store beacons instead of the more traditional coupon activities they have – while I always asked myself how they measure those due to a lack of tracking. An article published by the Mobile Commerce Daily (which you can read here in full length) suggests redemption rates of 60% at a Chinese Retailer, which I would find pretty ground-breaking and leading to the question: how on earth did they do that? I would think they probably have beacons all over so the consumer has no choice but to redeem something, just to get rid of it? A question also raised in the article: how much pressure is good for beacon based advertising in stores? Two per visit per customer is suggested. I would turn notifications off by then. But perhaps thats just me.

„Marktplätze“ bleibt beste IT / Digital- Neuerscheinung 2015 bei Springer

marktplätzeEs ist ganz einfach geschrieben – das Handbuch „Marktplätze im Umbruch„, mit dem der Springer-Verlag ein Megathema in Angriff nimmt. Das Werk beschreibt 12 Treiber der digitalen Transformation, also die Digitalisierung vieler Wirtschaftsbereiche wie Automobil, Logistik, Fertigung, Verlagswesen und Finanzen.

Die 12 Aspekte der Digitalisierung werden jeweils von einem Themenpaten eingeführt, der Experte in seiner Branche ist und diesen Aspekt in der Praxis schon beispielhaft gemeistert hat.

Der Erfolg des 759 Seiten umfassenden Werkes, in dem auch ein Autoren-Beitrag von mir enthalten ist, ist immens. Hermann Engesser, Cheflektor des Springer-Verlags dazu:

„Das Buch Marktplätze im Umbruch hat sich vom Start weg zu einem Standardwerk entwickelt. Mit über 220.000 Downloads trifft es auf eine große Nachfrage und ist selbst ein Beispiel für die Kraft digitalisierter Marktplätze.

Um die Komplexität der Entwicklungen in den unterschiedlichen Branchen verständlich zu machen hatten die Herausgeber eine Idee, die sich als durchschlagend erwies: Das Thema wird in zwölf Themenblöcke unterteilt. Das erleichtert die Zuordnung unterschiedlicher Trends und bringt Transparenz in die

Marktveränderungen unterschiedlicher Branchen. Damit ist es ein hervorragender Themenscout in der sich schnell verändernden Welt der rasch fortschreitenden Digitalisierung der Märkte.“

Kaufen kann man das Buch hier.