Tips for an Effective Mobile POS Implementation

One of the biggest mistakes you could make is to believe you know what's best for the customer, and not the other way around. Your mobile POS solution therefore needs to allow application build-out on any mobile device OS no matter what hardware and OS have been selected for store associates.

Defining and Calibrating Metrics
When defining and calibrating metrics for your POS implementation, the important thing is to figure out what you want to measure ahead of time, then build the measurement mechanisms into the deployment. Recalling the major sources of value — labor utilization, hardware costs and basket size — and ensuring that you identify and agree upon associated metrics need to be a part of your planning checklist.

From our observations of successful and unsuccessful POS implementations, the single most important tip would be to move ahead and not hesitate. Retailers that insist on total package functionality to go live will miss the boat, and retailers that wait until every piece of the puzzle appears to be in place will suffer from never being ready. Those who spend undo time and effort "selecting" the ideal OS are going to find themselves stuck with antiquated hardware and a nonupgradable application.

Mobile POS presents a unique opportunity for retailers to take a fresh look at how a customer transaction should flow. Instead of continuing on a path of "that's the way we've always done it," a mobile deployment allows retailers to go in and challenge the status quo, with the possibility of reinventing the entire customer experience in novel and engaging ways.

John Kenney is senior vice president of business development at Stella Nova Technologies. John can be reached at john.kenney@sntinc.com.