by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer
Source: www.mediapost.com, February 2020
More retail locations with no one working at them is on the horizon.
Consumers who use unattended retail channels, such as vending machines, self-service kiosks, self-serve gas stations and cashierless stores like Amazon Go tend to like the convenience.
About half (49%) of them find the process faster, 35% use them due to short lines and 33% because they can take time without talking to employees, based on a new study.
There are plenty of other reasons, including a preference for new technologies (19%), better data security (10%) and lower chance of fraud (9%), according to the study, comprising a survey of 2,300 U.S. consumers by Pymnts and USA Technologies.
The potential for more unattended places to buy more things is huge.
As many as 49 million consumers are interested in buying nontraditional items via unattended retail channels.
“This suggests that the market could grow by as much as 70% if everyone who sought to make unattended retail purchases had access to them, representing a considerable opportunity for unattended retail merchants to expand their customer bases,” states the study.
A majority (53%) of consumers also say they would spend more on items if they had more unattended retail options.
In not-so-good news for mobile payments, consumers prefer more traditional methods for payments at unattended retail locations.
The top method used and preferred is credit card (62%), followed debit card (54%) and cash (47%).
The higher tech methods are lower, including PayPal (17%), Apple Pay (7%) and Google Pay (4%).
The most common unattended retail purchases are in the category of food and beverage, with 52% of consumers’ purchases in the category.
This bodes well for the growth of cashierless checkout stores.
