June 12th, 2014 by Elma Jane
QR: The Bridge to the Modern World
Involvement devices have come a long way from the time of Clearinghouse mailings, where you would peel off a label and stick it onto another page before dropping it back in the mail.
Today, print’s best involvement device is the QR code. It works as a portal or bridge into the mobile online world where the cataloger’s brand lives and breathes in real time. Even better, it can lead the customer from the catalog page to the checkout button on their smartphone within minutes.
The printed catalog delivers rich colors and a personal, tactile experience still not attainable through any mobile device. In many ways, though, it is a vestige of a bygone era, and an expensive one at that. Catalogers know this. Even the U.S. Postal Service also knows this. That’s why the USPS is running a postage discount promotion for the second year in a row this summer to encourage the use of QR codes by direct mailers.
Let’s take a quick look at the way a few catalogers are using QR codes.
Anthropologie
Anthropologie’s marketing strategy is more about selling a lifestyle than selling products. That explains why making it easy for customers to move toward actually buying something doesn’t seem like such a big priority in their catalog. They did not include a QR code anywhere. The closest they came was one line next to the address: For store information, go to www.anthropologie.com. Their 800 number, they do take phone orders is printed only once in tiny type, so having no QR code seems to fit in with their attempts to play hard to get. Marketing critique aside, by not using a QR code on their catalog, they are missing the opportunity to draw customers into closer involvement with their brand, whether or not they intend to make an immediate sale.
Best Practices
With these few examples in mind, it’s time to look at best practices for using QR codes in catalogs, which can be a two-sided equation. There is the technical aspect and the branding/selling aspect. As far as the technical side goes, customers need to use their smartphone to scan the code successfully, and the destination on the other end must be optimized for mobile access. Sometimes the hardest part is organizing the resources required to execute the backend side of things, especially if the goal is to make an immediate sale.
The main thing to consider is that QR codes work as a bridge and that bridge is a smartphone, iPad, or some other tablet with all their usual constraints (screen size, internet connection, quality of camera, QR reader app, user proficiency, etc.). Also, don’t assume that everyone has a QR reader or even knows what a QR code is. Especially in catalogs, where customers have been seeing postal service barcodes for years, people may assume that the pixelated square thing is just something else for the USPS to lose money on. Instead, including a brief call to action to scan the QR code should do the trick.
Crossing the Bridge
Getting customers to scan the QR code is only half the battle. Now you need to make sure they feel it was worth their while to scan. It’s all about the next steps in your customer relationship. If you have an Apple or Android app, then that’s where to send people if you know that you can convert sales successfully on mobile devices. Sending them to your Facebook fan page is an option too, but not a big win if a majority of your customers are already fans.
Special promotions, optimized for mobile access, will certainly earn your QR its keep. If your goal is to inspire a trip to one of your stores, then do what Brookstone does and send customers to a Google map with all store locations within a hundred miles. It’s also possible to send scanners to a dedicated page, again, optimized for mobile where you give them a number of options: Facebook, shop, app, etc.
Delia’s
By appealing to fashion-hungry American teens via retail stores, web, and catalog, Delia’s sold over $220 million in 2011. In the single catalog we looked at, Delia’s had a QR code on its back cover. When scanned, the code points to Delia’s Facebook page. That’s certainly one way to build involvement with the Delia’s brand, but it may not be the best. Delia’s has an Apple app with full e-commerce capabilities, so Delia’s could be missing out on the opportunity to help the customer cut to the chase and get straight to their virtual shopping bag. Still, at least they’re using the code.
King Schools
Unless you’re a pilot in training or know one fairly well, you have probably never heard of King Schools. They offer more than 90 flight training courses, plus all sorts of accessories for pilots-in-training. They have no retail stores, but that’s all the more reason to mention them here, retailers can learn a lot from King Schools about how to use QR codes in their catalogs.
In the one catalog, King used a QR code on the front cover and the back cover. Now, the iPad shows enormous potential for use in general and commercial aviation, so King is smart to use their QR codes to point customers directly toward their mobile apps and offerings. In fact, King Schools uses QR codes on the Take Courses on Your iPad landing page itself.
In most cases it seems counterintuitive to display a QR code on a website for people to scan. After all, they’re already there. It’s a smart use of codes in this case, for two reasons. First, the codes lead the customer directly to the Apple app store, so it actually makes sense to scan the codes even though the customer is already on their website. The customer is now just a few clicks away from buying and installing the app. Second, there is one QR code for their app store in general, and then there are unique codes for individual apps.
Technicalities
The content in a QR code tops out at 4,296 alphanumeric characters, but catalogers only need a fraction of that to get the customer to where they want them. However, even when the character count is down to a few dozen, size does matter, because QR codes with more data embedded in them are more complex visually. This means that even smartphones with the latest and greatest optics will have trouble reading densely populated codes. Make sure the QR code is big enough. Even the simplest codes will frustrate the scanning process if they are too small or if there isn’t enough white space around them. Maybe a QR code isn’t the most photogenic thing in the world, so it’s a good challenge for catalog art directors to incorporate it into the design without shrinking it into oblivion.
More sophisticated catalogers will want to use personalized QR codes. Today, even local printers are likely to have the means to print unique QR codes for each recipient in a mailing. This creates the ability to track scans back to the individual, a marketer’s dream when it comes to one-to-one marketing relationships.
Innovation can get you traction within the social media realm and that’s money in the bank. Whether you’re a major catalog player or using QR for something completely different, always consider getting the marketing and PR people involved to leverage any novelty aspects of the application.
The benefits pile up quickly to those catalogers who take the time to get smart about QR codes. Thick catalog books can be thinned down a bit if QR codes succeed in pulling customers from the page and onto their site or apps, cutting postal costs for the millions of mailings every year. And, even if the cataloger doesn’t go to the extreme of printing unique QR codes, the branding value of offering that connection from the old-style printed piece to the dynamic world of interactive mobile technology makes it well worth the effort.
The ink needed to print a QR code on a major retailer’s catalog might weigh only a fraction of an ounce, but when used right, it’s worth its weight in gold. Too bad the majority of catalogs seem to be squandering the opportunity by underutilizing the code or worse, not including any at all. In a world where an integrated multi-channel approach is a must-have for any retailer to survive, the stakes of leveraging every opportunity for interaction are higher than ever.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Smartphone Tagged with: Android app, Anthropologie, app, Apple, bank, barcodes, Best Practices, Brookstone, clearinghouse, code, commercial aviation, Crossing the Bridge, customer relationship, data, data embedded, Delia’s, e-commerce, Facebook, google, Google map, interactive mobile technology, ipad, King Schools, marketing, mobile, mobile access, mobile device, mobile online, mobile technology, multi-channel, phone, portal, Postal Service, QR code, QR reader, retail stores, scan, scanners, smartphone, social media, tablet, USPS, virtual shopping, web, website
January 21st, 2014 by Elma Jane
A “cryptocurrency” is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency. Cryptocurrencies offer the potential for merchants to one day break the stranglehold of credit card processing fees. Cryptocurrencies are a disruptive technology that should be actively followed and considered. After all, online commerce is itself a disruptive technology.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s high cryptographic security allows it to process transactions in a very efficient and inexpensive way. You can make and receive payments using the Bitcoin network with little or no fees, and without a merchant account. Payments are made from a wallet application, either on your computer or smartphone, by entering the recipient’s address, the payment amount, and pressing send. To make it easier to enter a recipient’s address, many wallets can obtain the address by scanning a QR code or touching two phones together with NFC technology. Market Cap: $10.6 billion (12.1 million coins).
Bitcoin is the first implementation of a cryptocurrency, which was first described in 1998 by Wei Dai and specified by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, establishing a decentralized form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions. New Bitcoins are generated by a competitive and decentralized process called “mining,” the process of spending computing power to process transactions, secure the network, and keep everyone in the system synchronized together. The number of new Bitcoins created each year is automatically halved over time until Bitcoin issuance halts completely with a total of 21 million Bitcoins in existence.
Feathercoin – is based on Litecoin’s Scrypt-based hashing algorithm for GPU mining, rather than requiring Bitcoin’s expensive ASIC mining hardware. Feathercoin uses advanced checkpointing to provide additional security through a form of centralization without having to redistribute the Feathercoin software. At mining completion, 336 million coins will be produced. Market Cap: $11 million (26.2 million coins).
Litecoin – is based on the Bitcoin protocol, but differs from Bitcoin in that it can be efficiently mined with consumer-grade hardware. Litecoin provides faster transaction confirmations and uses a mining proof-of-work algorithm to target the regular computers with GPUs — graphics processing unite — most people already have. Litecoin provides a mining algorithm that can run at the same time on the same hardware used to mine Bitcoins. The Litecoin network is scheduled to produce 84 million currency units. Market Cap: $731 million (23.9 million coins).
Megacoin – raises the most red flags among this list of cryptocurrencies. Launched just six months ago, fifty percent of the total coins have been mined. Upon mining completion, only 42 million coins will exist. Its branding might lead an investor to believe it is associated with billionaire Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz, but there is no connection. If you are interested in monitoring the fate of the more speculative cryptocurrencies, this is one to watch. Market Cap: $15.3 million (21.2 million coins).
Namecoin – is based on the Bitcoin source code. A cryptocurrency, Namecoin also acts as a DNS, a decentralize domain name system to buy, register, configure, and sell domains. The first project using Namecoin is the .bit domain. Market Cap: $44.4 million (7.4 million coins).
Peercoin – is a cryptocurrency project forked from Bitcoin that strives to achieve energy efficiency and increased security. Like other cryptocurrencies, initial coins are mined through the more commonly used proof-of-work hashing process. However, unlike other coins, as the hashing difficulty increases over time, users continue to be rewarded with coins generated by the additional proof-of-stake algorithm. Unlike most cryptocurrencies, Peercoin does not have a fixed money supply. Market Cap: $90.1 million (20.9 million coins).
Primecoin – is the first cryptocurrency with non-hashcash proof-of-work. Primecoin’s proof-of-work is based on searching for prime number chains, providing potential scientific value in addition to minting and security for the network. Similar to Bitcoin, Primecoin enables instant payments to anyone, anywhere in the world. It also uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority. Primecoin is also the name of the open source software that enables the use of this currency. Market Cap: $13.8 million (3.5 million coins).
ProtoShares – are used to mine Distribute Autonomous Corporation (DAC) backed cyrptocurrencies while they are still in development by Invictus Innovations. DACs are essentially automated businesses that perform services. And so ProtoShares are stakes in future cryptocurrency platforms. Cryptocurrencies under development are BitShares for asset trading and DomainShares for domain services. Protoshares will achieve a maximum supply of approximately 2 million coins in 2 years. BitShares money supply will be about 20 million coins. Market Cap: $23.1 million (1.1 million coins).
Quark – is a cryptocurrency that focuses on enhanced security, using nine separate rounds of encryption and six different algorithms. Quark is mined by CPU only, with 247 million mined in the first six month and then an additional 1 million units mined every year. Quark coin will continue to release coins in perpetuity at an inflation rate of .5% per year. Market Cap: $47.4 million (246.3 million coins).
Worldcoin – seeks to become the cryptocurrency of choice for merchants and consumers for their everyday transactions. Transactions are fully confirmed in about 60 seconds. Due to frequent block generation (30 seconds), the network supports more transactions without a need to modify the software in the future. At mining completion, 265 million coins will be produced. Market Cap: $20.6 million (35.2 million coins).
Posted in e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Financial Services, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication Tagged with: asic mining, bitcoin, credit card processing, cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, cryptographic security, decentralized, gpu mining, hashing algorithm, make and receive payments, merchant account, nfc technology, online commerce, payment amount, peer-to-peer, process transactions, QR code, wallet application
October 15th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Banking and payments technology provider FIS and City National Bank, a private and business bank, have partnered to pilot FIS’s Cardless Cash Access at City National ATMs in Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. The solution lets consumers stage an ATM transaction from their mobile devices.
City National plans to introduce the emerging technology to clients in its three largest markets early next year, according to an FIS announcement, continuing FIS’ rollout of the solution at banks and ATMs in key U.S. locations.
FIS said Cardless Cash Access securely authenticates a user on his or her smartphone. The consumer then uses the phone to select the account and amount of the withdrawal. At the ATM, the consumer scans a QR code on the ATM screen and, within seconds, the cash is dispensed and an e-receipt is sent to the phone.
Consumers continue to look for innovative new ways to engage with their financial institutions via mobile devices, FIS Mobile, said in the release. At the same time, they demand additional security to keep their information safe. Information from Cardless Cash Access is maintained in the cloud, so card data cannot be accessed if the consumer’s phone is lost or stolen – making this a faster, safer, more secure way to make a withdrawal.”
To decrease fraud, FIS said, security within Cardless Cash Access is provided through the app’s authentication and registration of a user’s smartphone, which the company said eliminates card skimming risk and fraud incidents for banks and their clients.
With the proliferation of debit and access to cash at the point of sale, financial institutions are looking for ways to expand the utility of the ATM,” Senior vice president and head of product strategies, Vince Hruska, City National Bank, said in the release. “Cardless Cash Access not only provides a secure and easy way to obtain cash from an ATM, but introduces to the client a new way of looking at ATM use.
Posted in Financial Services Tagged with: account, amount, atm, authenticates, banking, banks, card, cardless, cash, data, e-receipt, emerging, financial, Mobile Devices, national, payments, QR code, securely, Security, Skimming, smartphone, transaction
October 11th, 2013 by Elma Jane
PayPal payments giant may finally have found a way to get people to use (Quick Response Code) QR Code.
The company is introducing Payment Code today, a new technology intended to enable shoppers to make purchases by scanning a QR code on their mobile phone, or receive a short four-digit code on their phone, to complete a purchase. “Payment code is easy to use and understand and utilizes a ubiquitous technology that merchants have and are familiar with. If the merchant has a barcode or QR code scanner, the merchant scans to complete the transaction. If the merchant doesn’t, then a four-digit code pops up on the shopper’s phone that can be entered into the PIN pad at checkout.
According to the PayPal blog, Payment Code is an extension of the company’s offerings aimed at enhancing in-store payments. Their approach isn’t to push technology for technology’s sake, but to truly make the paying experience better for consumers and to give merchants more opportunity to innovate without a costly investment. When shoppers are ready to pay, they open the PayPal app (or the specific merchant’s app) and check in at that location, which will result in the app prompting them with a QR code, or a four-digit short code, to authenticate their purchase.
Posted in Financial Services, Merchant Account Services News Articles, Mobile Payments Tagged with: app, authenticate, check in, code, costly, in-store payments, merchant, mobile, payment, PayPal, phone, purchase, QR, QR code, quick response, Scanning, shoppers, technology
September 26th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Convergence of mobile banking, ATM channels is a given
Auriga, Diebold, NCR and Wincor Nixdorf International have all demonstrated their mobile phone-based cardless cash withdrawal solutions. It is interesting to note that all of these vendors have embraced the QR code technology…a clear endorsement for a technology that is secure, low-cost, and readily available.
It doesn’t take a deep examination to realize that the mobile banking and ATM channels are heading toward convergence, and when the fusion of these dominant channels occurs, the consumer should be at the heart of it.
Auriga has advanced this idea by combining cardless ATM withdrawals with its mobile payments solution. The company has also added an option to make payments using a bank account rather than a card to support those consumers who do not embrace, or do not qualify for, traditional bank cards.
Not surprisingly, many large retailers are watching these developments with keen interest, ever mindful of the significant interchange fees they pay for accepting card based payments.
Although cardless ATM withdrawals and mobile payments are exciting, they are only the start of a deeper, multi-channel convergence. The real channel convergence is not happening at the endpoint devices, it is happening internally within the banks and processors, where modern, flexible technologies are being increasingly deployed to augment or replace yesterday’s legacy infrastructure.
The abilities to centralize business services to save costs, to easily deploy services over any channel for greater consumer choice and to achieve faster times to market for new services are no longer “nice to have” luxuries — they are now “must have” attributes to stay in the game.
It is little wonder that leading banks are shifting their IT investments away from solutions that perpetuate a fragmented services approach in favor of true multichannel systems that facilitate the ultimate consumer experience.
“Channel convergence does not mean that the ATM or the mobile device is at the center, it means the consumer is at the center.”
Once the consumer is placed at the center of your self-service strategy, you quickly realize it is their needs and preferences that should rightfully guide your approach.
The real secret is to allow consumers to interact with their bank the way they want to…with as few restrictions as possible. There is no magic silver bullet that will suit every consumer’s needs.
Banks can create deeper and more enduring relationships with their customers by implementing personalization profiles that allow consumers to tailor their own service experience.
MySpend solution is an excellent illustration of how banks and consumers can better cooperate to combat fraud, consumers can define their own use rules to significantly improve the accuracy of any fraud detection system. For example, card transactions from specific countries can be readily declined if a consumer knows that he or she will not be there, it also provides consumers with an instant notification of their transactions and the means for them to immediately flag any transaction they did not perform.
The use of consumer-specific profiles can be easily extended beyond the anti-fraud focus of MySpend solution. For example, Auriga’s Internet banking solution allows consumers to choose their own login security options from the bank-approved list, including an option for phone-based authentication using QR codes. More broadly, consumer-configured use profiles can improve the entire consumer experience, regardless of the chosen service channel.
Auriga’s ATM solution includes an intelligent menu that automatically tracks the consumer’s transactions and presents the most frequently used transactions on conveniently accessed menu buttons.
“The technology already exists to allow (consumers) to customize their own ATM menu through their mobile or Internet banking channel.” “It is only a matter of time to see the widespread adoption of this advanced customer-centric convenience.”
Ultimately, the business challenges are not about technology; they are about learning how to use the technology to promote growth and identify new competitive advantages. A recent ATM Marketplace report said that “the bank of the future will be a multichannel, multifunction and multi-device environment.” Given the current evidence, it seems this is a sentiment everyone can agree with.
Posted in Electronic Payments, Mobile Payments Tagged with: banking atm, banks, card based payments, convergence, diebold, interchange fees, mobile banking, Mobile Payments, mobile phone, QR code, secure, technology
