Nearpoints

Craig Mathias

Previous Article Next Article

Wireless is Redefining Retail – Motorola’s New Announcements, and a New Farpoint Group White Paper

Think all retail will eventually move to the Web? No way – and advances in wireless for retail applications will make the storefront more popular than ever.

By Craig Mathias on Mon, 01/23/12 - 8:25am.

. What's this?

There's a popular belief that the Web will eventually eliminate the need for most local retail. OK, a good many retail stores are indeed becoming showrooms for what eventually turns into an online sale for a competitor with lower prices and lower costs. But there's a lot that retailers can do - especially with IT - to remain the preferable alternative to Web-based sellers.

Storefront retail offers something the Web cannot - instant gratification, with minimal latency between the need and desire and the solution. I buy a good deal on the Web myself, but I am occasionally disappointed when I (eventually) get what I bought - it's just not what I expected, or I screwed up in ordering. Return shipping hassle and charges and now-common restocking fees should give anyone pause before they complete that online order. Really, wouldn't it be great to just stop by a local retailer and get what one needs?

Well, unfortunately, that's not always a walk in the park either. All to often, it's impossible to find a desired item, especially in the big-box stores who otherwise apply economies of scale to keep costs down and prices competitive, and finding help from someone who can actually answer one's question is often frustrating at the least.

But solutions, conveniently enough centered on advanced IT and especially wireless and mobile technologies, are on the way. I recently spoke with Motorola Solutions, who recently announced a number of retail-centric additions to their product line. While some WLAN vendors focus on education or healthcare, Motorola has maintained a long-standing relationship with retailers that goes way back to the core business of Symbol Technologies, a key player in laser optical scanners and (very early on) wireless LANs that Motorola acquired in 2007. Motorola's latest advances here include a new line of branch-centric, unified and highly-integrated networking and processing products that start with a WLAN controller but add switching, routing, application hosting, and a lot more, all in a small, easy-to-manage package. Having so much cost-effective power in a retail branch operation is key to new storefront competitiveness and success.

It's easy to envision the innovations in retail that will result from the availability of such cost-effective implementations. Just for example: collaborative communications among staff members; access to product information, how-to videos and other educational materials; location and tracking capabilities to guide shoppers to their desired destinations, unified Web/store shopper information (real "clicks and bricks"); instant check-out using a shopper's handset, and, well, the sky is the limit here. It's ultimately all about the apps (heard that before?), and being able to host local apps easily and cost-effectively will transform storefront retail just as wireless has - and will continue to.

You can read much more about this in our latest White Paper. Storefront retail isn't going anywhere; indeed, this industry has some amazing opportunities and great days ahead of it.