“Ka-ching! The cash register may be on its final sale,” Anne d’Innocenzio reports for The Associated Press. “Stores across the country are ditching the old-fashioned, clunky machines and having salespeople — and even shoppers themselves — ring up sales on smartphones and tablet computers.”
MacDailyNews Take: Apple iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads, to be precise. You can say it, AP. Really, it’s okay to report the actual truth.
“Barneys New York, a luxury retailer, this year plans to use iPads or iPod Touch devices for credit and debit card purchases in seven of its nearly two dozen regular-price stores,” d’Innocenzio reports. “Stores like smartphones and tablets because they take up less floor space than registers and free up cashiers to help customers instead of being tethered to one spot. They also are cheaper: For instance, iPads with accessories like credit card readers can cost a store $1,500, compared with $4,000 for a register. And Americans increasingly want the same speedy service in physical stores that they get from shopping online.”
“J.C. Penney, a mid-price department-store chain, said the response by customers has been great since it started rolling out iPod Touch devices late last year in its 1,100 stores. The goal is to have one in the hands of every salesperson by May. The company said that about a quarter of purchases at its stores nationwide now come from an iPod Touch,” d’Innocenzio reports. “Stores now are taking their cue from the success of Apple Inc., the nation’s most profitable retailer, which went to mobile checkout in its stores in 2006.”
d’Innocenzio reports, “Take upscale handbag maker Coach, which is using iPod Touch devices at half of its 189 factory outlet stores. The company also is testing them in a handful of its 350 regular stores… Urban Outfitters, which operates more than 400 stores under its namesake brand, Anthropologie and Free People, announced in late September that all sales eventually will be rung up on iPods and iPads on swivels located at counters. Urban Outfitters had given iPod Touch devices to its sales staff two years ago… Nordstrom handed out iPod Touch devices to its staff at its 117 department stores nationwide in 2011. And by late last year, it did the same for its 110 Nordstrom Rack stores that sell lower-priced merchandise.”
Read more in the full article here.
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