Retail and contactless technologies (NFC, RFID, BLE, etc.)
According to Fevad, French e-commerce is growing (sales improved to 14.6% in 2016 compared to 2015). After tourism market, retail market is a pillar of French e-commerce.
Retail is a dynamic and highly competitive market. In such a context, contactless technologies are helpful (essential?) tools to stand out.
Advantages of contactless for the retail trade
Guaranteeing authenticity of products, tenfolding proximity marketing capacities, improving management of in-store product availability, real-time monitoring of product preservation conditions... Here are some of the possibilities offered by contactless technologies. The only limit is your imagination!
These examples show that the contactless technologies are part of the response to the today changes in the retail trade, as well as tomorrow’s challenges.
Consumer expectations
Customization and fluidity
The consumer expects that his personality will be taken into consideration. Everyone wishes to be treated differently from his neighbor and to feel that he is unique.
It also wants to be sure that he is part of a win-win relationship with the merchant.
The retail market must then offer a user experience perceived as personalized.
Times of purchase have to fit smoothly into the daily life of the consumer and his actions must be fluid.
All communication and sales channels must therefore be synchronized.
More than ever, the merchant has to provide the right answer at the right time.
Protection of privacy
Messaging and social networks are becoming increasingly important in the purchasing process. But the systems implemented by the merchant must, however, ensure the preservation of privacy: the level of action into the personal sphere must not be perceived as invasion, otherwise it will be counterproductive.
Finding the balance between technology and human
In a context of technological developments and increasing connection, the consumer is afraid of missing human presence and has still strong expectations for personalized advices.
70% of consumers visit stores before buying on the Internet.
Conversely, 92% of them inquire on the Internet before buying in stores.
There is a tendency to renew physical shops. The store is evolving and is no longer designed just for purchasing: the store presents the products in a positive ambiance around them and in a way that the consumer can try them easily.
If opinions differ on the profitability of investing physics for commercial sites, it is on the contrary sure that trade is changing and is bringing service and proximity to the consumer
SpringCard, new retail solutions designer
The way the consumer purchases
In consumer services design, things that come first are the followings:
- the objectives to be achieved,
- and the user’s behaviour and expectations.
Once the User Story is clear, the technical respond is then designed.
The technological aspects can drive to a lack of creativity in the service design phase. It is only in a second phase that the technology is discussed.
A specialist with a wide expertise
Today, NFC, RFID and BlueTooth Low Energy technologies are no longer separated and can be combined either together or with other technologies such as geolocation in order to meet project requirements.
SpringCard is both a design office in electronics and embedded computing and a contactless solutions expert: SpringCard’s engineers offer a strong capacity to give some guidance related to contactless loyalty systems and other retail applications.
Thanks to our 17 years of experience, we are able to show you how to implement solutions for a better acceptability by the end-user.
Sources
One step further
Profils de comportements de consommateurs dans un environnement multi-canal : identification et étude des facteurs explicatifs, Sandrine HEITZ-SPAHN, IUT Robert Schuman (Laboratoire CERMAB-LEG).
Psychologie du consommateur et comportement d'achat, Cahier de recherche pour la validation d’un inventaire de de 23 traits de personnalité (abrégé en 16), Jean-Michel Gautier, Groupe HEC, Département Systèmes d’Information et d’Aide à la Décision (SIAD).
Related events
Paris Live Retail, 19-21 sept. 2017
RFID et wireless IoT in Düsseldorf, 27-28 sept. 2017
Published on 9/12/2017
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