Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/753030
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6 / S C T 11 transactions today, compared with 66 percent of transactions for the debit- and credit-card side. The remaining 7 percent involves prepaid and gift cards and mobile proximity payments. Some of this can be attributed to a major shift occurring in omni-channel shopping, which sees consumers make purchases online for later pickup at a physical store. "While in-store [point of sale] volume continues to be a dominant part of the retail landscape despite the continued growth of e-commerce, a bigger trend is emerging as consumers skip checkout lines in favor of delivery services and buy online and pick up in-store," said Michael Moeser, director of payments at Javelin Strategy & Research. "This blurring of online and brick-and- mortar is happening, and retailers need to learn how to embrace it." Certainly, point-of-sale payment systems are undergoing a dramatic transformation, making it easier for consumers to use more forms of payment. Case in point: Walmart developed a smartphone app that allows customers to scan and charge store items to their credit card and then to scan their phones at checkout. The app is valid only for Walmart purchases, but the company reports that some 22 million shoppers are using it. "Clearly, the world is evolving in a cashless direction, and it's the direction that all retailers are heading in," said Ken Perkins, founder of Retail Metrics, a research firm that analyzes store sales and retail earnings. Demographics are playing an important role in driving these adoptions of cash-payment alternatives. "Millennials and Gen-Zers are very comfortable not carrying cash, and they're much more comfortable only carrying their card and are more rapidly adopting smartphone-payment capabilities," said Steve Barr, U.S. retail and consumer sector leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers. But these trend lines do not necessarily spell the end of cash, which has stubbornly clung to relevance for the past few years. "Cash still has a role, albeit smaller," said Marshal Cohen, a retail industry analyst for NPD Group. "It is funny how the scale has shifted, but even back when cash was king, credit had a role, and now we see the reverse." n