Grocery And C-Store IT News For VARs — April 10, 2014
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
In this week’s grocery and c-store news, loyalty programs are a recurring theme. From tying rewards programs to mobile wallets and digital receipts, retailers are forging ahead with ways to keep customers coming. Meanwhile, NACS reported that c-store sales grew while profits declined in 2013. And POS remains a target of cybercrime and hacking — the news includes five ways to protect your systems and show you how researchers hacked an mPOS device to play a game.
Loyalty Schemes Will Drive Mobile Wallet Adoption
Mobilepaymentstoday reported that integrating robust loyalty offerings into their mobile wallets will help businesses see an increased number of consumers adopting mobile payments as a way to pay for in-store purchases. Euromonitor senior consumer finance analyst Michelle Evans wrote in her Euromonitor white paper “Leveraging Consumer Loyalty to Drive Mobile Payments Adoption” that “without a mobile loyalty platform embedded into the mobile payment, mobile wallets offer few benefits over a plastic card payment.”
Digital Receipts Now Offered To One Store’s Loyalty Program Members
Supermarket News reported that ShopRite is offering a digital receipt option to its loyalty cardholders. The new free program allows users to search by date, price, or product name.
NACS: C-Stores Sales Grow, Profits Decline
Supermarket News reported that convenience store sales made in-store rose to a record $204 billion in 2013, but increased hiring drove down pretax profits, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores. In spite of the growth, pretax profits fell.
Five Ways To Protect POS Stations And Networks From Cybercrime
This article from the Point of Sale News suggests five tips to help guard against breaches of POS systems. This include updating software, installing firewalls and anti-virus software, using and changing strong passwords, denying internet access from POS, and disabling all remote access.
Researchers Hack mPOS Devices, Play Flappy Bird
According to Finextra, “mobile point of sale (mPOS) devices can be easily hacked, leaving banks, retailers and customers open to fraud, claims MWR InfoSecurity, which has even managed to play Flappy Bird on one reader.”
Grocery And Convenience Store IT Talking Points
In this article, Micah Solomon provides some strong advice for working out customer-centric profiles. He discusses the tools of technology, employee selection, and reinforcement that are crucial to a successful relationship with a customer base that will keep them coming back for more.
For more news and insights, visit BSMinfo’s Grocery and Convenience Store Tech Center.