Today, two news stories reveal even more information about JC Penney’s plans and upcoming changes, which include eliminating the option to pay with cash, and the checkout process moving to iPads.
From Mobile Commerce Daily:
During the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Ron Johnson, CEO of JCPenney said that the company is planning to focus on consumers and the customer experience. By the end of 2013, the company plans to eliminate the cash route.
“We’ll have mobile checkout, you know, rolling out now and in the fall,” Mr. Johnson said during the conference. “But we’re also doing something that no retailer has done completely, is we are going 100 percent RFID with ticketing this fall… You don’t have to scan an item,” he said. “You just throw it down and there’s the price.
“You couldn’t do that if you had coupons, and you couldn’t do that in a promotional business strategy, because the customer has to figure out that every item had this unique price and was it right for this hour, you know.”
And, from USA Today:
J.C. Penney hopes to get rid of cashiers and cash registers by 2014, and instead have salespeople use iPod Touch devices to check out customers, or self-checkout lanes.
Starting this weekend, salespeople in Penney’s new Levi’s shops will use only iPads to check out customers. All of Penney’s 1,100 stores will offer mobile checkout by the end of the year, spokeswoman Kate Coultas says.
The USA Today piece also adds that Nordstrom is utilizing iPad checkouts, in addition to the standard registers:
More than 6,000 Nordstrom salespeople are already using mobile devices to check people out, just like at Apple stores. By the end of this year, Nordstrom salespeople will be able to do everything on their handheld devices that they can at a register, says Jamie Nordstrom, president of the company’s online division.
“I believe the future of our point-of-sale systems is completely mobile,” he says. “It’s hard to know whether it’s in one year or five years because the technology is evolving so rapidly.”
Several grocery stores — Costco and Sam’s Club are two — already use employees armed with mobile devices for “line busting,” retail consultant Kevin Sterneckert says. The workers scan products for customers standing in lines and print a bar code that they can take to cashiers to pay.
Nordstrom salespeople will still be able to make change, but not with the “cash registers of yesterday,” Nordstrom says. “As long as there is cash, we’ll always be happy to accept cash,” says Nordstrom, great-grandson of the chain’s founder.
Thanks to reader llamalluv for sending both of these stories today.
Coupon Maven says
… As I think about this, the moving-to-iPad checkout has made me also consider that there are MANY opportunities for fraud, shoplifting, or identity theft involved with people roaming the stores, iPads in hand, offering to “check you out.” Anyone can get a credit card reader for a smartphone or iPad — both Square and Paypal will send you one within a couple of days if you request one for your account.
These stories are already saying they want to bring the checkout to YOU — the USA Today piece says “If you go through the whole process of shopping with help along the way, why should you have to stop and be funneled to a line?”
So, a well-dressed person with a nametag meets you in the store, iPad in hand, and offers to ring up your purchases and swipe your card. Is it out of the realm of possibility that thieves might set themselves up in a busy store to steal credit card numbers in this way, especially if they’ve played the role of “personal shopper” helping you with your purchases? They’ve earned your trust, offered to help you pay right there — and then they disappear with your info, while you head out the store’s doors, unaware that you’ve unwittingly become a shoplifter and a fraud victim.
For me, as a shopper, I’d be very skeptical of anyone walking up to me in the middle of the store offering to check me out on an iPad. (And maybe that’s just me!) But I think it opens the door to so many other issues.
elizabethlloyd says
So if you’re not able to qualify for a credit or debit card, you won’t be able to buy anything at JCP? Yes, most people can go cashless, but for some it isn’t an option (never mind the ones who’d prefer not to). I guess there’s a certain class of people whose money JCP doesn’t want.
theresa1740 says
Incredible. No cash for JCP I think they are missing a whole group of people again!!! The federal government laws DO NOT Require private businesses to take cash But I think there needs to be a scan your own area like the library or something for the cash payors at JCP.
staceymott says
How interesting now that the stores can pass credit card costs on to the consumers, now they won’t take cash. Goodbye JCpenny’s.
Flag1 says
Wow, eliminate cash altogether. What other ludicrous thing will they think of next!
stringofpearls says
this former Apple CEO is still helping out his old company by wanting to purchase ipads for JCP…