The Walls Are Talking: The Rise of the Beacon

Imagine strolling down the street on a random Thursday when all of a sudden you walk into your favorite store.

Bing!

You’re notified and offered a 10% discount on their cashmere sweaters since they know you’re a fanatic.

Image via Jiransoft

Ugly rocks or the future of retail?

A beacon is an inexpensive device that retailers can place throughout their stores to interact with customer’s phones.

Beacons can be used to power maps, payments services, and location-sensitive product catalogs. There are many different beacon hardware vendors and systems — including Apple’s iBeacon system — but they all share some basic characteristics. Namely, they allow retailers and event organizers to efficiently communicate with you indoors, without a need for GPS.

Beacons function utilizing Bluetooth low-energy wireless technology. The Beacon allows the company to pinpoint the location of the consumer in the store. From there the system delivers a message to the shopper’s phone.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Chuck Martin called beacons “the missing piece in the whole mobile-shopping puzzle.” Pointing to the ability to push messages to people without them having to do anything at all, he sees beacons as overcoming a “major hurdle” for companies that want to engage with customers in a more personalized way — because it makes that engagement completely effortless for the customer.

Business Insider Intelligence estimates that Beacons will account for “$4.1 billion of total US store sales this year (or .1% of sales volume at top-100 retailers). That figure will grow 10X in 2016.”

The ability to seamlessly engage with shoppers throughout the retail experience is another monumental shift in the industry. This technology combined with social media will continue to disrupt the expereince of what it means to shop in the social age.