Israeli Program

Retalix, an Israeli retail technology company with U.S. offices in Plano, Texas, is introducing a mobile app called Mobile Shopper that does many of the same things as the Modiv mobile app. Its initial deployment is being tested by an Israeli food retailer that Retalix declined to identify.

Retalix’s Mobile Shopper, being tested by an Israeli grocer, will offer myriad functions, including lists, offers, loyalty and payment.

Like the Modiv app, the loyalty-card-based Retalix app will ultimately encompass all of the facets of a grocery shopping trip, from planning to payment. The initial release includes two of those components, offers (general and targeted) and list building. Shoppers can populate the list with offers and scanned products, and by searching the product catalog.

The third component of the app will be self-scanning and the fourth, checkout. The latter will be available in two options, paying strictly via the phone and generating an electronic receipt (thereby facilitating convenience transactions), or paying at a regular POS with the phone. In either case, the payment goes through the phone’s PIN-protected e-wallet where a shopper would register her credit or debit card; Retalix offers its own e-wallet, and plans to make other, NFC-based e-wallets compatible with its system. “We won’t dictate which e-wallet to use,” said Gil Roth, executive vice president of products portfolio strategy for Retalix.

Like other vendors, Retalix takes the position that mobile payment in the grocery environment will work better in concert with other shopping functions than by itself. “Overall, the game in mobile will be creating an application that will become [the consumer’s] companion for shopping rather than an app that does one thing,” said Roth. On the other hand, Retalix has developed its app so that each function could be used separately by the consumer.

Roth doesn’t expect NFC to be widely available on phones and POS terminals for three to five years. In the meantime, Retalix developed other ways to create an encrypted link between a phone and the POS via WiFi or a cellular network: The shopper identifies on the phone which register she is near; the shopper scans a QR code on the register, or the shopper reads a code from the phone to the cashier, who types it into the POS. (The Israeli retailer will use the last method along with a 3G amplifier to augment the 3G network, and it will not allow shoppers to pay only on their phones, said Roth.) In any case, the order is transferred to the phone, which pays via a pre-registered card.

All of the transaction data associated with the app are hosted on the store’s Retalix POS server (it is not yet designed for other POS systems), which can reside in the store or on the cloud; the phone is strictly a graphical user interface (GUI). If a phone loses power, an order can continue at a POS or on a mobile in-store device if that is available. The system has a cloud-based gateway that allows a secure connection between the phone and the POS server and “prevents abuse of the server,” said Roth.

Roth declined to provide the cost of the mobile shopper app for the retailer, but said that the ROI would come from at two factors: the ability to get information about shoppers that would in turn allow retailers to deliver basket-expanding personalized offers; and the enhanced loyalty that comes from improving the shopping experience. Retailers could also incur saving through reduced labor and fewer checkout lanes.

Roth takes the view that mobile payment will eventually reduce the interchange fees retailers pay per transaction. “We believe the entrance of new players will reduce transaction fees that U.S. retailers pay, which are quite high compared to what Europeans pay.”

Another company offering retailers a mobile app that includes payment is Boston-based AisleBuyer. To date, the payment app is being used by Magic Beans, a five-store Boston-based chain of toy and baby-gear stores. The app allows shoppers to pay by keying in a credit card number (a new feature will allow taking a picture of the card) and the card’s three-digit CVB code. An alternative “suspend-and-resume” method, more suitable for supermarkets, enables shoppers to scan and tally their order, then scan a QR code at a register and transfer the order to the POS. Weighable produce items could then be added to the order and the shopper would pay in a conventional manner, and the transaction would be transferred back to the phone as a digital receipt.

AisleBuyer’s supermarket app also enables shoppers to access nutrition information and customer reviews as well as receive personalized coupons and offers. In addition, shoppers can compile shopping lists and access a store locator. The app also includes localized digital circulars and targeted coupons based on the nearest store location. Last November, Big Y Foods, Springfield, Mass., announced it would deploy the app without the self-checkout feature.

An NFC-equipped phone would work with the AisleBuyer system, allowing the shopper to complete the transaction by tapping the phone on an NFC reader, said Andrew Paradise, the firm’s chief executive officer.

Last month AisleBuyer announced a new mobile feature that would permit brands to deliver targeted promotions goods to shoppers during the shopping trip in response to what is being scanned; retailers would get a share of the ad revenue.

Another company working around the edges of mobile scanning and payment is Mercatus Technologies, Toronto. Mercatus’s iPhone app, offered by Food Lion, allows shoppers to browse weekly specials, manage their shopping list, find recipes or simply locate the closest Food Lion store, while syncing to information on a chain’s website. In late October, Mercatus announced the addition of NFC and QR code technologies to its mobile app, giving consumers access to immediate information about products as well as the potential to pay with their phones.

Price Chopper Supermarkets, Schenectady, N.Y., said last fall that it plans to launch its first mobile-phone application and an enhanced website based on Mercatus’ “Smart Shopping Technology.” Greg Zeh, the 128-store chain’s chief information officer, said Price Chopper expected to launch the mobile applications prior to the end of its current fiscal year in April. The initial launch of the mobile app will include shopping lists synchronized between the chain’s website and mobile phone, store locations, recipes and other product information. “Our roadmap includes additional features that will meet the demands of our shoppers,” said Zeh.

The Mercatus platform provides Price Chopper with the ability “to expand the same experiences” to kiosks, shopping cart tablets and other customer digital interactions, Zeh said. Mercatus’s tablet technology has the capacity to do product price scanning and tallying, though there are no current tablet deployments, Lucy Trinh, creative director for Mercatus, said last October. The mobile app was “not far off” from having price scanning capability, she added.

Kroger also ventured into the mobile scanning world last year. The company tested a handheld shopping device called PAL (personal assistant and liaison) that is similar in functionality to the Stop & Shop/Giant Scan It! handheld scanner. The device was used in a store in Cold Spring, Ky., and was added to one in Loveland, Ohio, according to Kypost.com. Not unlike Stop & Shop, Kroger plans to master a personal shopping platform under its control to get “a leg up on the emerging world of the smartphone,” Brett Bonner, senior director at Kroger, said last year at the U Connect Live conference.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart Stores, through its Silicon Valley-based WalmartLabs, launched new functions for its iPhone and iPad apps in November. The iPhone app includes voice-enabled shopping lists, budgeting tools that calculate the total price as items are added to a list, manufacturer coupons, product information, and (in some stores) a product locator. The iPad app includes the ability to purchase items online as well as browse inventory in a store and look at extended online inventory.

Verizon’s Bagal urges retailers to experiment with the new mobile technologies. “Now is the time to learn,” he said. “It’s going to be on top of us before we know it.”

Article By: Supermarket News