Category: Mobile Payments

The application is designed to change the way that customers pay for purchases in popular locations.

Downtown has now unveiled its mobile payments app in an attempt to provide consumers with a new method of ordering and paying for their food in Palo Alto, in popular meeting spots such as the Coupa Café.

The primary difference that the wallet app could make is in the way consumers are paying for their purchases.

While it has become relatively commonplace to be able to order a meal at many quick service restaurants – particularly when it comes to delivery or take-out – the way that consumers pay for what they buy when they are actually inside a restaurant has stayed somewhat the same. However, Downtown is hoping that its new mobile payments app, which has recently been launched for iOS devices, in-store orders and transactions will be able to be made directly from an iPhone.

Despite the fact that mobile payments services have been slow to take off, companies are still looking for the perfect angle.

Consumers have not been adopting smartphone payments services as quickly as many mobile wallet companies had expected, but many believe that this is simply because the right convenient offering has not yet made it appealing enough for these options to be used. Downtown is using iBeacon technology to allow the restaurant to be able to detect exactly where a customer is sitting, so that he or she can use a smartphone to order food and pay for it, and the restaurant staff will know exactly where that customer is sitting so that it can be delivered directly to him or her.

Although this geolocation based order placing technology is starting off at shops such as cafes, the co-founders of downtown, Xavier de Ryckel, Phillip Buckendorf, and Max Noelle, intend to expand the use of this tech into other areas, as well. They are already planning to move the use of the service into restaurants and even food trucks over the next few months. So far, the mobile payments app is designed to be ideal for small purchases being made in person at Palo Alto businesses.

Mobile commerce remains an elusive issue for most of the retail industry, but analytics can help

Retailers are beginning to turn to mobile technology in order to better understand consumers. Smartphones and tablets are seemingly omnipresent in the modern age. Many consumers have begun to rely on these devices quite heavily in their daily lives, and many of these people are using their devices to shop online and at physical stores. Because consumers are becoming more mobile, retailers are working to better understand their shopping habits. Without a comprehensive understanding of mobile consumers, retailers may miss significant opportunities in terms of business.

Retailers are making use of analytics technology in order to better understand the behavior of mobile consumers

Retailers are turning to companies like Physicalytics, which provides services that are designed to track consumers when they approach certain stores. Using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technology, these services are able to link themselves to a person’s smartphone, allowing retailers to track their shopping patterns. This is quite similar to how retailers track the behavior of online consumers. This data can be used by retailers to tailor themselves to more effectively engage mobile consumers.

Mobile-centric consumers are difficult to understand for many retailers that have yet to become comfortable in the mobile space

Analystics has been an important part of the retail industry for decades. Understanding the patterns that exist among certain consumer demographics is important for retailers because it allows them to become more engaged with their audience. The advent of mobile technology has changed the way consumers shop, which has placed a greater importance on analytics. Retailers have, for some time now, struggled to keep up with the changing habits of consumers that are becoming increasingly mobile-centric.

RetailNext finds success with its analytics technology

RetailNext is one company that has found some success with its analytics services. The company’s technology is being used at some 400 retail stores in Canada and the U.S. The company offers a variety of services that are aimed at meeting a retailer’s specific needs and has won acclaim from the retailers that make use of its technology.