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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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