POS Systems

M.Fredric is a California-based apparel retailer that sells its products via nine brick-and-mortar stores and an e-commerce website. Like many omnichannel brands, managing inventory levels in real time to prevent out-of-stocks and overstocks was a challenge for M.Fredric. In addition, a lack of real-time sales data meant buying decisions were delayed, a serious inhibitor for…

Target and Home Depot's recent data breach crises have left Americans questioning the overall safety of point-of-sale (POS) transactions. They're fearful of continued credit card fraud, and with almost 100 million total people affected by the two megastores’ hacks alone, who can blame them? Many, however, view Apple's not-so-creatively-titled Apple Pay as the solution to a more secure checkout process.

Just when you thought it was safe to start accepting credit cards again…
Home Depot confirmed yesterday that it’s investigating some “unusual activity” with regards to its customer data.

A day after announcing a disappointing second quarter, Wal-Mart has made an aggressive holiday promise to its customers: the world's largest retailer says it will staff every cash register from the day after Thanksgiving through the days just before Christmas during peak shopping times. Wal-Mart's "checkout promise" is aimed at addressing lengthy waits in checkout lines. "We feel good about price and having the top gifts of the season, so the next priority is about getting customers in and out of the stores quickly," Duncan Mac Naughton, Wal-Mart's chief merchandising officer, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

"People have said when checkout is working really well, it will feel like stealing. You grab a pair of shoes and you just walk out." That's how Michael Chui, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute, describes the retail-checkout experience in your not-too-distant future.This coming transformation in the way you pay for items in bricks-and-mortar stores will occur through a network of

During the 2013 holiday season, Perry Ellis deployed Starmount's mobile selling and customer engagement solutions to better focus on line busting, engaging customers throughout the store and completing transactions on mobile devices. The solutions were rolled out in 60 Perry Ellis stores, boosting adoption rates and increasing the average transaction amounts for sales conducted with mobile devices. The top Perry Ellis stores conducted up to 16.4 percent of all transactions on mobile devices, enabling associates to deliver the high level of customer service for which Perry Ellis is renowned. 

Target's massive data breach continues to reverberate in the headlines, but in reality it's just one of countless attacks that affect the retail industry on a daily basis. Whether it's highly sophisticated malware developed out of Russia, local hit-and-run point-of-sale thieves or insider threats, retailers must adapt to this increasingly risky environment. First of all, it's important for retailers to understand that just because you meet PCI compliance doesn't mean you're not at risk. PCI is the bare minimum that your company should be doing to protect itself — but it won't stop today's more sophisticated attacks.

The retail battle is on: To help shoppers sort through the noise of the web, discover new products and receive an individualized or special shopping experience like that found in a high-end store, online retailers have pulled out all the stops. In addition to adopting product recommendation technologies aimed at providing an Amazonian shopping experience, some retailers are focusing efforts on the product mix.

Ahead of a Federal Trade Commission conference Wednesday on the privacy implications of mobile device tracking in stores, airports, hotels and other public places, a new website is launching where consumers can opt out of having their location information collected. Going live Tuesday, the opt-out platform was built by The Wireless Registry for the Future of Privacy Forum, which developed a code of conduct adopted by 11 mobile location analytics firms. 

With approximately 1.5 billion smartphones currently in use today, it's safe to say mobile is radically changing consumer retail behavior. To maximize in-store sales opportunities and minimize hurdles to purchase, retailers must change their approach to reach a new generation of consumers steeped in a mobile lifestyle. But how should retailers best interact with their customers in this new age of mobile? A new innovation from Apple could be one answer: iBeacon.