Retail checkout innovations : a census of active practices

The in-store shopping experience has been continuously and tremendously changing in the last decade that new technologies, new devices and new processes are redefining the customer journey. Nowadays, the retail innovations becoming more prevalent as more and more stores adopting to these new developments offering convenience for consumers and competitive advantage for merchants. This thesis aims to depict the current digital transformation in retail industry by censusing the innovative methods used worldwide with a particular focus on the checkout thus, the payment side of the shopping in-store. This study started with surveying the literature in order to define the elements shaping retail experience and set the ground for the upcoming work and with this object in mind the evolution of payments throughout the history was analyzed from the barter method in ancient days to ‘Amazon GO’ today. Then, in the literature part, the focal points of this thesis, beyond the retail in general, was clarified by resorting to the ‘Smart POS Census’ created by Osservatorio Mobile Payment & Commerce and the ‘Innovative Checkout Methods Census & Framework’ constructed by Osservatorio Innovative Payments. The reasoning behind this particular choice of these concepts was that they are two exclusive and complementary aspects of retail payments thus, the combination creates a comprehensive picture covering all the necessary steps of an ordinary transaction which are the payment activation and authorization in conjunction from the customer side represented by the innovative checkout methods and payment acceptance from the merchant side reflected by the smart POS. Furthermore, the main methodology of this thesis was determined as sustaining and expanding these censuses by two observatories operating at Politecnico di Milano. In this manner, first the previous data was examined and new data was collected thus a full list of active Smart POS applications and innovative checkout practices in the market in the globe was possessed, second categorization variables and connected frameworks were established in order to group these apps and practices in classes to assess. The empirical analysis was double edged like the overall thesis; one was concerned to categorize the Smart POS applications according to the variables about the value created by these apps for the merchants and the other was interested in contextualizing the innovative checkout practices by fitting into various framework in conformity with respect to the characteristics of in-store experience enabled by these practices. In the light of these analysis, some intriguing results and insights were identified that further discussed in detail, finally ending up with useful comments on the underlying mechanisms and technologies, embedded values and future possible trends in retail payments and shopping experience in a broader sense.