The technology transforming the retail industry

Selfies are becoming a part of everyday life – Mastercard has rolled out selfies as a payment method in the UK and HSBC business customers can now use selfies as a form of ID.

As our smartphones become extensions of everything we do it is more and more normal for customers to order products through their phones to pick up later in a physical location – known as click and collect.

The BT Alexander Black concept store features a coffee shop that combines these methods of purchasing products, allowing customers to order their coffee through their smartphones and take a selfie to ensure it’s easy to identify the owner of the product once it’s delivered.

The idea behind this innovation is to tie loyalty into the customer experience, allowing customers to have a profile storing their details including their picture, which is used on over-head displays to alert customers their order is ready.

This also ties in with the store’s loyalty scheme, and could also allow the consumer to save their favourite drink order to make it easy to select the next time they visit the store.