Starbucks Smart Phone Payments
Nov 15th, 2011 by sammiechan
Recently, Starbucks announced that they were incorporating a new, innovative way for consumers to purchase their drinks: using smart phones to pay. According to Adam Brotman, customers forget their wallets at home, but usually everyone remembers to carry around their phones. Starbucks has generated an official app for iPhone that allows their customers to enter their prepaid Starbucks card number and tap a scanner. Customers can just tap their phones on a scanner at a Starbucks counter after ordering and go, just as simple as that. The beneficial side to this new technological strategy is that customers can pay quicker, which reduces the wait in line for other customers. People will be less likely to leave the long line-ups for their favorite holiday drink, since a mobile-payment only takes six seconds compared to credit card payments!
By utilizing this method of payment, Starbucks can use management information systems to generate data from the sales. The company will be able to recognize consumers buying trends and thus, the company can implement ways for improvement.
Want to read more about the article? :http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/tech-news/starbucks-rolls-out-smart-phone-payments-in-canada/article2228467/
Read more about the new mobile app here: http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/mobile-apps
Picture: http://blogs.ft.com/fttechhub/2009/09/starbucks-app-turns-iphone-into-a-wallet/
Did Starbucks specify how they will deal with the security aspect of this product? For me this whole thing sounds like a hacker’s heaven and i can only begin to imagine how much money Starbucks will spend monitoring this channel of cash transfer… I can’t imagine this working in real life… what is the proof of payment? Do you show your phone when you order? WHAAAT!