Mobile POS: Hype Versus Opportunity

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

Retailers continue to struggle with mobile device deployment, despite surging mobile POS (point of sale) shipments. This dichotomy presents big opportunities for the channel.

Recent research from CFI Group and IHL Group illustrates a retail industry that put the proverbial cart in front of the horse in terms of mobile POS adoption. While IHL sizes the global mobile POS market at $7.8 billion and growing — the consultancy predicted that mobile POS shipments would grow more than 95 percent worldwide and surpass 108 percent growth in North America this year — the average consumer has yet to see the benefit of all that investment. In fact, more than threequarters of consumers surveyed by CFI Group this year report never having been assisted by a technology-enabled store associate. Of the few consumers who have been engaged by a digitally enabled associate in stores, 55 percent said the interaction wasn’t at all helpful (up 6 points from 2013).

In retail, where the consumer fails to see the benefit of a technology investment, so too does the merchant.