5 Best Practices for Integrating Mobile into Retail

With all the new mobile technology innovations spewing forth, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement. That even goes for sophisticated decision makers.

You know your market’s going to put the pressure on you for better service, quality goods, and competitive prices. The same goes for your bosses.

Before everything takes you by storm, make sure you follow these best practices for integrating mobile into your retail strategy:

1. Does it fulfill either a company or customer need?
   Ultimately, you have to get good ROI out of the technology you’re considering. If you don’t have a strong business case for it, don’t use it!
   It may seem unnecessary to discuss this. But it happens often where companies have apps built that deliver little to no real business value.
2. How will you engage your employees?
   What could be worse than an app that drives business value, but your employees resist using? It’s a huge problem many retailers don’t account for.
   To get the most buy-in from your employees, include them in the design and deployment of your new technology. That way, they’ll know the value from the start, and you won’t have to spend time convincing them of the value.
3. How will your technology complement your e-commerce operations?
   Will your digital store have separate promotions from your physical store? Will they be different? Will some overlap while others remain unique?
   If you don’t have an item in your physical store, will your employees be able to check your online store for your customer? Will they be able to order and ship the item on the spot?
4. How will you manage more devices?
   Say you decide to equip your employees with iPads. While they will eliminate the need for much maintenance, they won’t necessarily be headache-free. They also might be vulnerable to employee theft.
   How will you monitor and care for any new devices you need, and especially so if you need a large volume of them?
5. How will you address security from external threats?
   With the use of mobile devices and technology expanding so fast, they’re moving at speeds faster than any standards-making-body can offer security practices for. Will you be able to remotely lock your devices or wipe their data? What if a foreign country successfully hacks you, and you have absolutely no legal recourse?

Helpful as technology is, it does open up serious security concerns.
Consider each of those five best practices as you integrate mobile into your retail operations.