Digital Retail Survey 2022 - anybill x Snabble

anybill and Snabble share one goal: revolutionizing brick-and-mortar retail! That's why, in November 2021, we launched a joint qualitative survey across our LinkedIn communities. Our aim was to get to know our communities even better and to gather insights and sentiment from them on various topics from the digital retail industry. With a combined 3,600 followers of anybill and Snabble, the multiple-choice questions reached a broad audience. Are you ready for the latest trends in digital retail? Does your company have a digitalization strategy for the coming years? Digitalization and the 21st century are firmly intertwined. We wanted participants to become aware of the extent to which digitalization – and a strategy for it – already plays a role in their company. 67% of respondents answered that they already have a strategy, 22% said they have a rough roadmap, and 11% have no digitalization strategy at all. This snapshot clearly shows that digitalization already plays an important role and will play an even more important one in the future. anybill and Snabble rely on digital solutions at the point of sale (POS) – an essential part of a successful, forward-looking strategy for customers and retailers alike. In what form will digital services become better established in brick-and-mortar retail? Almost 90% of respondents were certain: “as an embedded service”. Only one in ten respondents thought a single-app solution would become better established. Snabble and anybill focus on an embedded service approach: Snabble's core feature, the Scan & Go function, can be integrated into existing apps as an SDK (software development kit). Likewise, anybill's SDK can be integrated into existing apps to offer digital receipts through partners' applications. The advantage of embedded services is obvious: customers don't have to use a separate app for every digital service at the POS – they can use all digital services in parallel within one application. How many digital services would you offer in brick-and-mortar retail at most? As providers of digital receipts and Scan & Go, anybill and Snabble already cover two different digital services in brick-and-mortar retail. But there are many more offerings, such as smart shopping lists, in-store Wi-Fi, real-time information while shopping, or loyalty programs. We asked ourselves and our community: how much might be “too much”? The most popular answer, at 63%, was “as many as possible”. This is also confirmed, for example, by E-Commerce Magazin in a 2020 article, which reports that “almost three quarters of German internet users want more service through digital technologies when shopping in brick-and-mortar retail”. Supply and demand are clearly aligned. It's worth adding that in our LinkedIn survey, 19% each voted for “2 at most” and “5 at most” digital services in brick-and-mortar retail. So the desire for digital services is there. How many can be integrated in a meaningful way should always be adapted to the individual situation. Our motto, of course, is “the more the better”, since digital receipts and Scan & Go solutions alone can boost customer satisfaction while streamlining and speeding up the checkout process. What problems arise when implementing digital services at the point of sale? Some still shy away from implementing digital services for various reasons: 48% of respondents voted for “too little know-how” as a problem. “Too much hardware” was the decisive pain point for 21%, while for 17% it was “legal issues”. Only 14% of respondents voted for “costs too high”. Tobias Gubo, CTO and co-founder of anybill, explains: “POS systems are mostly B2B products designed to process customers at the POS as efficiently as possible. We deliver the sophisticated B2C solution for digital receipts, without anyone having to master the new territory around end customers. With our know-how, we support all retailers to make implementation as easy as possible.” Snabble and anybill act not just as service providers, but as partners with holistic solutions and a shared goal: digitalizing the point of sale. What requirements must your POS system meet to offer digital services in your store? There is only one correct answer here: “it has to be extensible”. This option was chosen by 86% of respondents. No extra hardware is needed – although 10% of our participants thought so. 5% voted for “the POS system must not be a handheld”, but this assumption is not correct either. The decisive factor is the extensibility of the POS system: once that is in place, implementing digital services is not a problem. Snabble can act as a standalone POS system or be integrated into the existing checkout. The digital receipt with anybill can likewise be booked as an add-on module. With an extensible POS system, digital services can be embedded seamlessly, giving customers – and retailers themselves – a better shopping and selling experience.  Want to learn even more about our “Digital Retail Survey 2022”? Then read the second part over at Snabble, which covers topics such as the relevance of sustainability at the POS and the maximum time required to implement digital services! The Digital Retail Survey 2022 by anybill & Snabble is not representative. It merely reflects a snapshot of sentiment in the LinkedIn communities of anybill & Snabble.