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large burger chains (McDonald's, Burger King and
Wendy's) disclosed plans to roll out mobile order-
ahead apps later this year.
The payoff for these businesses can be big and include
more frequent customer visits and higher average spend
per visit. Taco Bell said its mobile customers spend 30
percent more per order than do walk-in customers.
Integrating mobile order-ahead with a loyalty program
may lead to even more benefits, such as driving some
customers to place mobile orders during off-peak
hours, which can enhance productivity, capacity
utilization and profit margins, Pucci wrote.
In 2016, consumers spent about $210 billion at QSR and
casual dining restaurants, according to Morgan Stanley
& Co.; about $10 billion of that total came from online
orders. Indicating the growing popularity of order- It’s brilliant! Sell CenPOS and enjoy
ahead options, Business Insider recently said it expects
mobile order-ahead purchases to reach $38 billion in higher margins, while providing your
2020, or about 11 percent of total QSR sales. Mercator
is more optimistic; it projects mobile order-ahead sales clients with the most intelligent, intuitive
will reach 20 percent of total QSR sales by 2020.
and profit-rich payment solution on the
Order-ahead is not just a QSR phenomenon, however.
Consumer demand for instant gratification cuts across market. Build stronger relationships and
all areas of life and shopping. That's why traditional
merchant verticals, like department stores and those increase your own bottom line the easy
selling electronics and hard goods, are getting into
the game. Among them are big name retailers like way. Think smart. Think CenPOS.
Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Best Buy. In these cases,
however, the option works best with customers who
already know what they want and desire an easy,
faster way to locate, purchase and pick up those items,
as information presented on mobile screens can be
limited, Pucci noted.
The most obvious advantage to traditional merchants
of this new order and payment channel is cost-
effectiveness: it can reduce staffing needs while
boosting sales. "They [traditional retailers] now realize
that they need to do this as part of an omnichannel
strategy," Pucci said. "It helps with margins."
Drago Dzerve, Vice President, Product Management
at Verifone Inc., cautioned, however, that the
technology behind these solutions can pose complex
implementation problems. "It's about a lot more than
having a cool mobile app," he said, adding, for example,
that a tokenization piece must tie transactions to SALES AGENTS APPLY AT
payments. "The migration from ecommerce and card
present to omnichannel can be a humongous task," he cenpos.com/sales
noted.
Verifone developed several mobile POS solutions for
small and midsize businesses. The latest of these,
known as Carbon 8, is a portable device for fast-paced careers@cenpos.com • 305.630.7960
merchant environments like restaurants. In addition
to supporting mobile payments, Carbon 8 provides
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