In hindsight, it appears that people really should have been able to see this coming from a mile away. The release of the iPad as well as the ever increasing ability to make an app for almost every conceivable situation means that stores and restaurants starting to replace menus and cash registers and all sorts of other devices with Apple’s portable device should have been foreseen.
Originally it was only the smaller boutique type stores that found a way to use the iPad instead of a regular cash register simply because it didn’t make a whole lot of sense for the bigger retailers to make a commitment to the technology before they saw how popular it was going to be. Now there are reports that retail giants such as Lowes, Nordstrom and Urban Outfitters are looking at getting rid of the register and finding other ways to begin moving to the iPad.
Lowes has actually made the biggest move to the iPad with the announcement last week that they will be bringing as many as 42,000 iPads into select stores. By using the iPad, customers and employees alike can access different features such as checking the inventory of a store at the push of a couple of buttons as well as get a full color picture of a specific part. How-to videos will also be made available on the devices, helping the customers know how to use the products they just purchased correctly before they leave the store. Lowe’s move was a direct reaction to competitor Home Depot announcing that it would be bringing in 30,000 devices known as First Phone devices which are described as “souped up Blackberries.”
The upside of replacing the cash register and other in-store devices with the iPad is not only ease of use, but because the devices are hooked up easily to a Wi-Fi network, employees and management can get up to the minute data on what is being sold and when. This is one of the reasons the trendy New York Restaurant De Santos has decided to completely replace their paper menus with a group of iPad 2’s. De Santos uses the iPads to allow customers to see what their orders will look like once they get to their table as well as what is in it. With the iPads, the customers can not only view the menu and place their order, but using an attachment from “Square” which is a mobile payment company; the customer can swipe their credit card on the iPad and pay their bill.
While the iPad 2’s might seem like expensive menu replacements the restaurant’s managers say that the additional functionality of the devices, including being able to see exactly what is selling, at what time of day and at what pace is actually saving the business money. More and more stores and other businesses are adding the devices as an integral part of their in-store experience and it does not appear as though that particular trend is going to be drying up any time soon.
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