College
students like the speed and convenience of mobile commerce, and are coming to
expect it at retail establishments, if the experience of the Alvin Community
College Store, Alvin, TX, is any indication.
After
Manager Victoria Marvel added a mobile solution to her store’s point-of-sale
system in order to facilitate remote sales at events such as ACC baseball
games, she didn’t need to do much training with her student employees. When she
showed them the handheld checkout device, “our student workers just grabbed it
out of my hand and wanted to play around with it,” she said during her
educational presentation on Go to Your Students: Mobile Commerce at CAMEX 2014
in Dallas, TX.
Her student
customers were equally excited. These days, with students preferring not to
carry around much cash, they were thrilled to be able to buy spirit merchandise
at games with their debit or credit card.
“Students absolutely
love it,” Marvel said. To complete the sale, all she has to do is scan the bar
code on the product tag, swipe the customer’s card, and find out if they want a
receipt.
She can
print out a paper receipt from the mobile device, or email a digital version to
students if they prefer. “They don’t really care about receipts,” Marvel
commented, “but probably 20% to 30% have it come to email.”
