Below we outline the top challenges that companies have outlined that have slowed their adoption of mobile devices despite the strong financial data support in increased sales growth. In the latest IHL research we see a different level of deployment based on mobile types.
What is somewhat surprising, however is the fact that despite the significant demonstrated increase in sales when mobile devices are used, a significant number of retailers have yet to deploy the devices.
This is most surprising with Mobile Managers where in the past we have seen sales growth percentages of 250% higher by getting the most expensive employees more on the sales floor.
Looking forward, we are starting to see a heavy level of new decisions coming in the next two years. 34% of retailers are planning to purchase new Mobile devices for Managers in the next two years. 27% are planning to purchase Mobile for Associates but without the POS function enabled during the next 2 years.
Perhaps the single largest area of investment going forward are the 39% of retailers planning to deploy Mobile POS in the next 24 months.
It is clear that Mobile POS is a key part of the planned enhancement of the customer experience at the store level in 2018/2019.
What is clear is that there have been many reasons that retailers have delayed in the deployment of mobile devices and these are related to the many challenges being able to do the deployments well and achieving ROI targets. With this thought in mind, our research has identified the Top 5 Challenges mentioned by retailers that they either experienced while deploying or have kept them from rolling out mobile devices in their chain despite the strong potential financial improvements that have been experienced by retailers enjoying the technology.
