Why waste time wondering if and when e-commerce will make brick-and-mortar retailing obsolete? Why not blend the two instead, blurring the distinction for the benefit of merchants and consumers alike?
That’s the message behind InComm’s new sales program that encourages customers to make online purchases of items like downloadable music and ebooks while shopping in old-fashioned brick-and-mortar retailers.
The program relies on “point of purchase marketing” and the contemporary consumer’s omnipresent mobile device. Customers can use text messaging, an Internet browser, or a QR code scanner to retrieve the barcode of the digital item they are interested in purchasing. The cashier will scan the barcode at checkout, and the item can either be stored directly on the buyer’s mobile device, or delivered by e-mail.
Take a look at InComm’s In-Store Digital Solutions system at work.
The goal of the program is to provide brick-and-mortar merchants with an “expanded catalog” according to InComm In-Store Digital Solutions SVP, Thomas Corneliius. Ideally, the additional range of products available – both those traditionally bought and sold in brick-and-mortar shops and those traditionally bought and sold online – makes it that much harder for customers in a buying mood to leave the store empty-handed.
InComm was also in the news recently with the launch of its Cashtie API. Cashtime uses the merchant’s current POS infrastructure to link cash payments to software applications. The company has also been active on the merger and acquisition front, buying digital gift solutions company, Giftango, for an unspecified amount in January.
InComm demonstrated its mobile commerce platform at FinovateFall 2011 in New York. See the presentation here.