Tablet Talisman

Not since Moses first presented the Ten Commandments has there been this much excitement about tablets. And if rumors of a new iPad becoming available for the holiday season are any indication, there is no doubt that the latest “it” device from Apple will become one of the year’s most coveted items.

While more retailers are hoping to stock them for the holidays, carrying the units is the absolute least attention retailers should be giving the devices.

“When shoppers enter a store, we are still stuck in 1950,” says Jon Stine, director, Internet business solutions group, for Cisco Systems. “This is not conducive in an era when shoppers are demanding that retailers provide them with a technology-enabled, Internet-like shopping experience at store level.”

It’s not about having “fancy” technology, Stine says. “Many shoppers live and view their lives through technology, and those expectations don’t stop just because they enter a retail store. ... Retailers need mash-up shopping, or the ability to provide the best of the virtual shopping experience in a physical environment.”

The willingness and ability to adapt to this change could well be a make-or-break proposition for some chains. Loyalty is at a premium, and unless a retailer can deliver superior customer service in the form of instantaneous knowledge, it can kiss loyal shoppers goodbye.

“What consumers want right now is information,” says Jeff Roster, Gartner vice president of industry market strategy for retail. “If they go to a store, especially when they are ready to purchase a big-ticket item, they want access to current, up-to-date product details, customer reviews, even blogs – all the information they can get online at home, and they don’t want to print it out and bring it along [to the store].”

Kiosks have been a gateway to delivering some of this information, along with the advent of mobile retailing. “Thanks to the web, search tools, even mobility and smartphones, customers have far more access to information when they are in the store vs. the employee who works there,” says Nikki Baird, managing partner for Retail Systems Research.

“The only way to compete is to put similar technology in the store associates’ hands and teach them how to use it. Tablet computers’ mobility, usability and robust interface are the perfect combination to technically-enable store associates and build the customer experience.”

The now-defunct Circuit City was on track to harness the power of mobile tablets in 2008 when it distributed its “Enhanced Digital Guide Experience,” or EDGE tablet PCs, to store-level associates as selling agents. The interactive, wireless tablet, comprised of Microsoft’s .Net framework and a Web-enabled interface, helped employees deliver more knowledge and more customer service.

Other chains dabbled in tablet computing as well, but it didn’t take long for earlier versions to be overshadowed by a newer, more powerful device: smartphones and their accompanying apps.
There is no denying that consumers are putting retailers’ apps to the test. The timing is ripe for tablet computing to make a name for itself in retail. And there may not be a better prototype than the iPad.