Beacons, Bpay bands & the Beech Road experiment
Some things take on a life of their own. Either that or they’re flavour of the month. Like the ‘Beacon’. For the past two weeks, all I seem to read about is one beacon-related story after the other. From retailers putting them up in shops and malls, to museums incorporating them into their guides to new specs and standards covering the installation of beacons into airports. Beacons appear to have captured everyone’s imagination and may well be the way to encourage deeper customer interaction.
Even QR code-based companies such as LevelUp are integrating support for beacon technology after testing showed that pushing in-store offers through the technology significantly increased sales. Last month, LevelUp added support for the technology to its platform and sent devices to a few of its merchant customers so that shoppers could be alerted to upcoming loyalty rewards. Participating businesses experienced a 22% average increase in customer spend through the LevelUp app or the business' custom app. Meanwhile the rate of transactions from previously "lapsed" LevelUp users increased by 63%. Seth Priebatsch, chief ninja (seriously), LevelUp, said, "Building iBeacon support into apps built on the LevelUp platform will help customers stay apprised of their upcoming rewards and help businesses earn more through their loyalty programs. Mobile payments have enabled local businesses to track customer spend and deliver unique offers to individual customers like never before. Now with iBeacon functionality, businesses using LevelUp can also communicate with customers during their crucial decision-making process.”
This would appear to be a sentiment that other organisations are also embracing. Recently, SITA (the world's leading specialist in air transport communications and information technology) created an initiative called the ‘Beacon Registry’ – a registry of common use iBeacons for the Air Transport Industry (ATI). The registry is a SITA initiative and allows beacon owners (airlines, airports or 3rd parties) to manage their beacon infrastructure and track where they are placed in an airport. It also enables airports to monitor beacon deployment to prevent radio interference with existing Wi-Fi access points, provides beacons owners with a simple mechanism to set the 'meta-data' associated with beacons and provides an API for app developers who want to use these beacons for developing travel and other related apps. The aims of the registry are to promote the use of beacons in the Air Transport Industry and reduce the cost and complexity of deployment. The registry was launched in a private beta release in April, with a general launch scheduled for the SITA IT Summit this June. expect to see beacons at an airport near you soon.
Other companies such as Estimote are keen to explain that for beacons to really become successful they really need to be ‘smart beacons’, in that they can create a form of context for the user. Something that many companies involved in this area are more than aware of. You can watch their video explaining what they mean by this by following the link. Event companies are also embracing beacons for their events in order to allow attendees to interact with each other. Eventbase Technology Inc.for the first time used iBeacons so that attendees could connect with each other at the Cannes Lions® 2014 festival, last week, using the iBeacon-powered ‘Around Me’ feature within the official iPhone app to detect nearby attendees and connect with them. Eventbase co-founder Jeff Sinclair said the Cannes Lions app combined the power of iBeacon technology with tight LinkedIn integration to allow attendees to see who is around them, read their profile and immediately reach out to them through the app. "We're excited to be pioneering the use of iBeacon technology for attendee-to-attendee networking," said Sinclair. "The ability to find out more about the people around you and instantly connect has the potential to transform the event experience entirely."
Speaking of events and new technology, the London Pride week started on Sunday. More importantly (to us), it was the first time many attendees got to use their Bpay bands and attend the event while leaving their cash at home. I have been following Twitter chatter concerning the bands and to be honest - they seem to be a huge hit. The amount of people tweeting selfies of their bands was impressive. It’s a great move by Barclays, allowing the bands’ owners to load their ticket and top-up the credit on their band. From there, the users can access fast-track entry to the festival, make payments up to the normal £20 limit, and access to special extras like Facebook integration. All in all a total contactless experience. This could be the future. With the Samsung Gear already out and a possible iWatch on the way, perhaps instead of wearing your heart on your sleeve, you may end up wearing your wallet on your wrist!
And finally - the Beech Road Experiment. This Saturday saw shops, restaurants and cafes in a street in Chorlton (near Manchester) take payments on plastic or mobile – no cash allowed. Mary Paul, of the Beech Road traders' association, said: "Businesses can see the way things are going with more money being taken on cards across the board, so this is a very interesting glimpse into the future for all of us." This month the British Retail Consortium (BRC) revealed cash use has fallen by 14% in the last five years and that card use is increasing rapidly, with debit cards currently being used for 32% of transactions compared to 30% last year. Helen Dickinson, director general of the BRC, said: "Customers are taking advantage of new ways to shop and pay. The availability of contactless cards, handy express stores and self-service tills, as well as online sales, has increased the use of debit cards for smaller payments in place of cash." The experiment was the idea of card payment provider Handepay. Mark Latham, product and innovation director at Handepay said, “The introduction of contactless technology has only accelerated this (cashless) process as transactions are now as fast as the pace of our lives”.
Isn’t that the truth!
Until next week.
Steve Atkins
Contactless Intelligence
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