Nowadays technology is the one running this world. Everybody uses technology in their daily life. Innovative technologies are coming in market daily that makes life easier and also affects the market. iBeacon is one of the technology that can change the way Trillion Dollar Retail Industry work.
As we all know apple has introduced an iBeacon and was officially announced as one of the most important features in iOS 7. What is iBeacon? Questions come to many people’s mind that is not tech savvy. It is an Apple’s brand of indoor positioning technology. That utilizes Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to detect user’s presence inside a building or mall using small wireless sensors called Beacons.
iBeacon is highly rated because it can offer indoor positioning technology as well as it has potential to change the retail marketing, mobile payments and so much more.
The predication is going around the market how iBeacon can change the retail marketing. Many startups are building apps around these and people have wondered what effects it can have. As an experienced mobile technologist, I came up with some impacts that it can make
Here are 4 reasons that show iBeacon can change the retail industry?
1) It is an Open Standard introduced by Apple
As we all know Apple’s common technique is to take an existing technology or modify it slightly (enough to be proprietary) and then improve the quality according to public conscious by focusing on real benefit for general people. Open Standards solves adoption issue for retailers, who have difficulty in supporting something like NFC which is supported by Android but not by Apple. For iBeacons, it is possible for manufacturers and system integrators to create beacons which can support both iOS and Android/Windows devices at the same time. While its possible that apple may charge for the use of the ‘iBeacon branding in the same way as ‘Made for iPhone’, which
implementers are careful to avoid it at the moment, the protocols are free to use. It means retailers can be comfortable to implement iBeacons. Retailers will have the potential to serve the majority of their customers without any major complications.
2) Low cost hardware and low-maintenance cost
Hardware and maintenance cost is an important factor to implement any technology in business. iBeacon makes it easy because the total cost of ownership for beacon hardware is an order below the usual level for enterprise retail hardware, to such a point where they can almost be considered disposable. The ‘Low Energy’ part of BLE is important - beacon manufacturers such as Estimote claim their devices can run for up to two years on a single coin battery, which reduce the retailers’ maintenance costs.
3) Accurate Indoor location
When we talk about accurately entering customers’ indoor location (where GPS is Ineffective) is a problem that hardware manufacturers have been struggling with for years. It means local experience is most important when customer is actually inside the store. With accuracy in inches rather than feet can not only direct customers to the store, but to assist the way where customer would find their desired product.
4) Customer identification and data collection
IBeacon has a terrific way for store staff to identify customers and link with them with their digital activity. This helps all hosts to take customer service benefits and a real opportunity for ‘surprise and delight’- so saliency is detecting and verifying a click and customer as soon as customer enters into store, and their product also is ready before reaching the service counter. A beacon placed at the store’s entrance could easily tell you how many customers are coming in and what Smartphone they have.
Above points proves that iBeacons have potential to play an important role in retail marketing. It also helps to provide more personalized and seamless customer experiences. You also can expect in-store engagement to get more relevant, interesting - and, ultimately, profitable - as a result.
Piyush
