Traditional point-of-sale systems still have a place in the retail industry, but they are no longer the de facto option for accepting consumer payments. Mobile devices such as tablets have taken the market by storm, delivering similar functionality to stationary PCs with capabilities more suited to today’s fast-paced shopper mentality. Businesses with a mobile POS can empower sales representatives, enabling employees to serve customers anywhere in the store.

An IHL Group study indicated global POS hardware shipments experienced healthy growth during the first half of 2014, VSR magazine reported.

Greg Buzek, president of IHL Group, said enterprise retailers are experiencing “tremendous” changes from technology.

Mobile POS fastest-growing retail sector since Internet

A separate IHL Group study noted the North American mobile POS retail market is currently worth nearly $8 billion. The firm asserted mobile POS is the fastest-moving development to influence the retail segment since businesses integrated Internet into their stores. Apple is perhaps the biggest reason behind this development, thanks to its popular iPad device.

Much like how Apple started the smartphone craze by introducing the iPhone in 2007, the tech giant started a similar trend some years later with the iPad. The iPad offers touchscreen functionality that makes Web browsing, typing and operating system navigation possible in a slim package that is easy to carry around a retail store.

An iPad POS is a great way for replacing or augmenting current POS systems with more agile tools. Businesses that embrace these solutions will have an opportunity to achieve operational flexibility, employee productivity and, importantly, customer service. The main problem with older POS infrastructure is that consumers are required to wait in designated lines to purchase items. This causes certain areas of a store to become crowded and, if someone is returning a product or has a question that requires further assistance, this only leads to added frustration among the people waiting for their turn.

A mobile POS is an effective way of relieving the burden from sale reps working at the checkout line. Now, employees walking around the store with an iPad in hand can help shoppers purchase goods without waiting.

Apple’s product is driving retail experience

Consumers may have been the ones most responsible for adopting the iPad in droves when it first launched, but businesses are also jumping on this bandwagon and will continue to do so in the years to come. IHL Group explained retailers are eager to achieve the same experience throughout the entire organization – a capability also leading them to implement a mobile POS.

Future shipments of tablets, especially the iPad, will experience double-digit growth, with many of these devices used for POS capabilities, IHL Group predicted.

Churn is the enemy of effective marketing, dissolving email deliverability and ultimately making it more challenging to connect with customers. Bounce rates can be heavily impactful on deliverability, putting stains on your delivery IP. On average marketers lose around 30% of their email database to attrition annually, or around 2.5% per month in the retail industry. A recent mailchimp study found that even non-responding subscribers are more likely to purchase more often. Customers become familiar with the brand, they understand your products, your culture and your messaging, which makes your sales process much simpler.

How to minimize email list churn?

Build Your Own Lists

Email lists are an asset and must be protected. Purchasing lists can ruin campaign deliverability, they often include many undeliverable emails or inactive addresses.

Transparent Opt-ins

Subscribers should be added voluntarily, ask your customers for consent and ensure they understand what they are signing up for. This will help you to avoid unsubscribes down the line.

Contact Subscribers ASAP

Once your subscribers are added to your list, reach out to them straight away. Your customers will want to know what the list is for and what your business is about, a simple welcome email can help.

Track Interaction

If your messages are not getting opened, or clicked this is a clear warning sign. Either your subscribers are not interested, or the contact information you have is not valid. Monitor bounce rate & opens closely.

Use Email Change of Address

You can reconnect with inactive subscribers and those with incorrect contact information, all while improving campaign deliverability and protecting your I.P.

How Email Change Of Address Can Help

Email change of address is an efficient and effective way to grow your list without spending a lot. It can be around 50% cheaper than acquiring new email addresses. The added benefit is reconnecting with list subscribers you have lost due to attrition. Cleaning the list, will usually lead to increased ROI and improved campaign interaction. These subscribers likely already have a proficient understanding of your business, products and services, making them far more receptive to your messaging. Keeping existing customers happy is also critical for any business, leaving those that have joined membership, loyalty or subscription programs in the dark can often lead to alienation, disappointment or disengagement with the brand.

As an example, a leading pet supply retailer leveraged ECOA service to refresh their email list, they were able to gain a 25% increase in sales by reconnecting with these members. They discovered that 40% of the email records were unreachable, many users had since deleted, or changed their email addresses, incorrectly entered their email address, or stopped activity.

Effectively making these customers unreachable, resulting in very high bounce rates in email campaigns. Stemming deliverability in other campaigns and causing inbox placement to suffer. (Got a lot of emails going to junk/other, this is probably why). Using the ECOA tool this company was able to update 30,000 customers, cleaning inactive, bounced and invalid emails. Resulting in, improved total deliverability, and increasing the ability of the company to reach interested customers that have been left in the dark.

Teamwork partner, FreshAddress, takes a unique approach to refreshing the email list; prioritizing list hygiene and accurate data sets. Identifying potential matches, requesting permission and eventually replacing the email in the database. New matches then go through a final hygiene process, deliverability check and active status.

Are you interested in taking a look at an email acquisition process that’s at least 50% cheaper than your current spend and drives higher ROI? Email: partners@teamworkcommerce.com