I was in a Skateboard shop at the weekend (yeah, I know I am 46!) and they had a till that was running as a web app over a VPN. I could see it was running in browser - the guy (or should that be dude?) on the till was using FaceBook until interrupted him to buy something!I quizzed him about the till and how it worked and although it isn’t as integrated as it could be (the Card machine was separate), it was still pretty impressive. I asked about the business model behind the device, but I think I lost him at this point and he said he didn’t own the shop (man)!
However, I did ascertain that the software (or rather Service) is from an English company called Cybertill (http://www.cybertill.co.uk/). The other part of their business is eCommerce sites which uses the same data being used by the Cybertill. Cool!
This is a very clear example of the sort of thing to come. I can imagine that this works exceptionally well for small independent Retailers (like Bath's only independent owned skateboard shop!), but it also demonstrates the way for lots of other Retailers. I can imagine that it will be the smaller retailers and the emerging markets (i.e. India, China, etc) that first adopt this technology - it will be a while before the rather conservative High Street Retailers are confident enough to go this route. But the smaller Retailers will drive this change.
What's more important here are the business models that can be used to underpin this technology. For example, it would be very straightforward to bill Retailers on a transaction basis - thus the Retailer's costs would increase in line with their sales and the technology provider can scale out the technology as and when it is required. What a change from the current situation!
