According to a growing number of retail industry and mobile tech analysts, the conventional check out lanes at retail outlets will soon be a thing of the past.
“Retail associates will be mobile payment receivers,” analyst Brian Kent of Talahoe Consulting says, adding that “as retail real estate becomes more sparse, accommodating clunky cash registers will not be a practical option.”
By the end of the decade, Kent suspects, current checkout models at retailers large and small will look dramatically different.
Earlier this month, mobile payments giant PayAnywhere made a bold move by openly inviting merchants to accept the future… today.
“Whether you’re sending employees to multiple locations to patch customers’ pipes or groom a patrons’ pooch, you can now equip each member of your team with a dedicated PayAnywhere credit card reader, and each one will link back to your company’s master PayAnywhere account for easy reconciliation,” the company says.
Imagine you’re at your weekly farmers market and there are several customers wanting to purchase your amazing heirloom tomatoes all at once. You could make them wait, and risk losing their business to the booth across the way, or you could use multiple checkers, each with their own PayAnywhere reader, to speed up the process and ultimately complete more sales.
Kent suspects that retailers of all shapes, sizes, and varieties will soon train their sales floor associates to accept mobile payments from virtually any location within their stores.
According to Kent, it’s practical, efficient, and by all accounts, now unavoidable.