Retailers wishing to introduce Scan & Go into their business strategy typically face a number of challenges. This blog post will consider five of these challenges and discuss best practices and other important qualities to guarantee smooth integration.
The challenges can be broken down into the following sections:
- Integrating Scan & Go into existing infrastructure
- Choosing the most suitable client type
- Deciding between customization or third-party app
- Using an SDK to integrate Scan & Go into an existing retailer app
- Long-term support and maintenance
Integrating Scan & Go into existing infrastructure
There’s much more to retail than meets the eye; to ensure that all store processes run efficiently, retailers will have a variety of systems in place to manage them. This includes systems to cover fields like customer loyalty, promotions, receipt generation, price calculation, inventory management, and so on.
For Scan & Go to function optimally, these existing business tools should be kept in use so as not to disturb the processes they support. The introduction of a mobile self-checkout solution should therefore be integrated into the existing infrastructure, rather than the other way around. For internal management, there should be no difference in the way customers complete their purchase. This allows retailers to stay consistent in their strategy while making full use of all the opportunities created by Scan & Go.
There is a huge difference between having dedicated interfaces for these integration processes and having to do all the integration manually. Creating a dedicated interface for the sole purpose of integrating third-party systems and committing to its maintenance makes the integration much smoother. Over the years, we have optimized our interfaces to make the integration process as straightforward as possible.
Choosing the most suitable client type
There are a range of Scan & Go customer clients, and choosing the right one is absolutely crucial for the success of Scan & Go. Each client type will be the perfect fit for a certain retailer or industry, while being completely the wrong choice for another.
A Scan & Go web app, for example, is perfect for stores with low customer frequency (approx. once a month) since they do not have to install an application they will rarely use but can still benefit from a mobile self-checkout solution. This includes segments such as hardware and cosmetics.
Retailers who already have their own application, on the other hand, would be much better off choosing a Software Development Kit (SDK) approach when introducing Scan & Go. This allows them to keep users in their main app while enhancing and extending its functionality to enable mobile self-checkout.
In any case, it is vital to clearly define and communicate the needs and circumstances so that the Scan & Go provider can offer the solution that best fits the individual case. At shopreme, we offer a variety of client types and make sure that we find the perfect client during our exploratory workshops. Getting this right at the beginning will go a long way to ensuring the success of the Scan & Go project.
Make it Yours: Deciding between customization and third-party apps
In retail, customer loyalty is everything. Combine this with the fact that customers expect direct and consistent communication, and it becomes clear that there is a fundamental decision facing retailers who want to introduce Scan & Go: should we offer our customers a highly customized Scan & Go experience or should we simply use an existing Scan & Go platform?
At first glance, it might seem tempting to use an existing platform. But looking further ahead, this will limit retailers’ ability to promote their corporate identity since customizations are usually minimal. Furthermore, there is no direct relationship between the retailer and their customer, since they are just one retailer of many on the platform.
This is why we have chosen a white label approach: thanks to an almost endless list of customization possibilities, we can offer our customers a Scan & Go solution that is branded exactly according to their CI and integrated seamlessly into their existing infrastructure. All this enables us to provide a turnkey solution for retailers who want to introduce Scan & Go to their business.
Using an SDK to integrate Scan & Go into an existing retailer app
For retailers with an existing application, using an SDK to integrate the mobile self-checkout functionality into the existing app is the best way to ensure uptake.
The shopreme SDK has consistently won out in procurement processes across Europe, and it distinguishes itself from other options on the market thanks to a dedicated customization layer. As well as enabling extensive customization to fully reflect the CI, this feature allows us to provide long-term support and regular updates.
Thinking ahead: Long-term support and maintenance
To ensure that Scan & Go is successful long beyond its introduction, the solution must be regularly updated as all components, especially the clients, need to be actively maintained to guarantee compatibility with the newest mobile operating systems.
It can be easy to lose sight of the importance of long-term support, especially at the start of a project when things like the feature set and time to market seem all important, but to make Scan & Go a sustainable checkout method, long-term support is absolutely critical. Otherwise, a very promising project can quickly go askew as updates are not pushed out and the app becomes unusable.
It is also important that long-term support not only covers all client types in use (including native apps, SDKs, and web apps), but also the server components. shopreme Scan & Go guarantees clients active support and regularupdates. This is in addition to other resources available on the DevPortal that aim to improve developer quality of life as well as streamlining the integration process.
A good Scan & Go solution should be intuitive for the user therefore the planning and preparation in the background needs to be meticulous to ensure the highest quality product for end customers. This will mean deciding how to integrate the solution into the existing system landscape without disturbing business processes, choosing the right client type for your needs, and finally opting for the right provider that offers extensive customization and long-term support and maintenance. Taking care of all of these things will ensure that Scan & Go is a success for your business.
If you would like to learn more about shopreme Scan & Go, contact us for more information and a personal product demo.