Mobile Kiosk Using Tablets

In the last couple of months I have had 3 customers where we have discussed using tablets as a potential option for in-store ordering. To me this is a great idea and already implemented by some in the US and a people starting to change in the UK. Apple for example do it themselves and  Disney stores in the US has also implemented the same. House of Fraser in the UK has some stores where store users do carry an iPAD but its not complete in store ordering.

Why tablet and not the regular kiosk.

When you go for a tablet solution for kiosk, you use an external merchandising / commerce system via APIs. This architecture lays the foundation for many things like assisted in-store, unassisted (self service) in-store and mobile apps.   You can bring the web experience to the users in-store which includes and is not limited to showing reviews and ratings for a product, showing demo videos, showing recommendations of products that are bought together with a particular product etc. More intelligent apps might be able to handle in-store inventory as well which will allow pick up immediately after ordering instead of getting it delivered to home or store. Not to mention this is cost effective and relatively quick if executed correctly.   

Payment options

The preferred option for the customer will be use the card. Direct debit may be possible (and may be easier) but not explored so far. Since you have the customer in front of you, you should not be doing CNP transactions like you do it on the web. You need a card present transaction and for that you need to integrate a chip and pin device. There are a few things that need to be taken care of when integrating with chip & pin devices and they will be 

Tablets

Consider the cost of buying (or renting), breakage and most importantly theft. These are easy picks and you will be amazed to see how quickly they disappear if you don't have a proper mechanism to lock them down or trace them.

Card Device

Which device to use is affected by 

• Company policy and preference
• Payment providers support and accreditations. (A process which normally takes anywhere between 2-4 months for a new device)

App / Browser 

It is easier to integrate an locally installed app rather than using a browser based solution.  Browser based solution require an external / local service to fire up the pin pad and this could result in a very complex architecture with fail overs and DRs. If you are using app, the actual development of the app will be quite trivial but PCI compliance kicks in. 

PCI compliance.

The development of app needs to be PCI compliant as you card data passes through it. You need to disable all I/O ports on the tablet and no other app can be installed on it. There are many more things required to be done on the device but not listing them here else it will become a PCI compliance discussion. Again this exercise could be time consuming.

Screen size.

This was an issue with one of my customer where they wanted to use the tablet in a fixed position behind the desk. A tablet screen would have been too small for colleague to show it to the customer from behind the desk. To do it properly they will have to hand over the tablet to the customer which again can pose security issues. 

I would probably upload an overall block diagram of how things interact with each other. But a little later.

-AV