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NRF: Executive schools retailers on mobile payment

Retailers could reap a plethora of benefits by implementing mobile-payment systems

January 9, 2011

Retailers piled into a conference room in New York City's Javits Center Sunday to learn how embracing mobile payment could help them reach their clients.

"Mobile, a cross-channel enabler, is present within every other channel experience impacting in-store retailing," said Richard Crone, CEO of Crone Consulting, in his session "Using Mobile Payments to Increase the Base of Contactable Customers."

"It sets the stage for a whole new paradigm," he said.

Mobile payment should appeal to retailers because it creates an always-contactable customer, considering people rarely leave the house without their cell phones, Crone said. That availability leads to "out-of-home, direct-response marketing programs, failsafe check-in capabilities that merchants control and in-store real-time offers," he said.

He predicted that by 2012, more than 50 percent of in-store sales will be mobile based, and 40 percent of sales will have cross-channel capabilities. In order for retailers to profit from the trend they must "know" their customers.

"The one who enrolls is the one who controls," Crone said throughout his presentation. "Whoever enrolls the customer for a mobile offering will be in the driver's seat for other new valued-added services. "

Creating a database that includes customers' cell phones is the first step of Crone's three-part plan to implementing a successful mobile-payment system.

"You have to get their mobile numbers," he said. "You have to move away from an anonymous customer base and get as much information as possible."

The second step is the actual mobile payment process — making it possible for customers to use their phones to buy goods and services.

The final step, "opt-in, user-defined mobile marketing," provides the retailer with even more revenue-generating opportunities, such as sending consumers coupons via text messages based on buying history.

"Retailers, through their enrolled base, stimulate and maintain product demand before, during and after every transaction," said Crone, who expects retailers to eventually reap advertising dollars from mobile payments.

"If you know your customers and are accepting their mobile payments and providing applications that allow them to self-market to themselves, consumer-packaged goods companies will pay you to advertise to them."

Another benefit of mobile payment is that it requires no new hardware, which means lower processing costs for retailers. The sooner they embrace mobile payment, Crone said, the sooner they can stop paying credit card companies to facilitate transactions.