By John Kenney, Stella Nova Technologies, Inc. (www.sntinc.com)

Five years from now, the least likely place a transaction will be completed is at the cash wrap. In the past, customers and retailers have experienced a single channel touch point via the brick-and-mortar store. Today, this single channel touch point has evolved into a complex and multi-channel experience — where customers interact via multiple, independent touch points that function through retailers in technical silos, including e-commerce, catalog, and brick-and-mortar. Building off the multi-channel approach, retailers are scrambling to deploy a high-function, high-touch cross-channel approach where customers view multiple touch points across one brand, and retailers have one single view of the customer as they still operate out of technical silos. But the future, and what some are calling the “nirvana” of retail, will be the age of the omni-channel. Omni-channel entails customers enjoying a seamless brand experience independent of channel, as opposed to channels within brands, and retailers use strategic ways that leverage their single view of the customer.

A survey by Lightspeed Research in April 2011 reports that 59% of today’s customers are the omni-channel customers of the future. Lightspeed broke that 59% down into three categories, including: value-focused followers, data-hungry tech enthusiasts and tech-savvy social shoppers. Retailers must ask themselves two questions in order to empower this 59% of customers as well as enhance the customer experience and enable store associates. The first is: How will new and emerging mobile technologies affect customers? The second: How will the retailer be able to support these initiatives?

By John Kenney, Senior Vice President/Business Development

Retail stores are in a push for customers to drive their shopping experience—from selection to checkout. At the same time, customers are looking for a cross-channel shopping experience that can encompass the digital shopping cart, combining all channels from in-store to at-home to mobile that can be saved, comparison shopped, recommended, stock-checked and purchased/delivered as and when desired. Keeping pace with consumer technology is also a big drive. Despite these drivers, disconnects still exist between the retail mobile point-of-sale (POS) planners, and the reality of the customer’s world.

Introducing the new blog for our Wake Forest-based firm providing Tier 1 retailers with mobile point-of-sale solutions

We are Stella Nova Technologies, Inc., an innovative retail point of sale (POS) and web application provider, committed to creating POS solutions that work to meet the unique requirements of today’s largest retail enterprises and their customers. Our new blog will feature news, industry insights and commentary on industry trends for innovation in mobile retail.

We hope you will find our content interesting and thought provoking. Our expert authors will strive to focus on education and relevant industry topics, providing timely information.

Driven by a panel of subject matter experts, the new blog aims to further readers’ education on topics to improve their business. Topics covered include: trends in mobile commerce technology, cloud computing, and mobile POS development, architecture and solutions in retail.