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Monday, March 10, 2014

M-Commerce a Hit with College Students

College students like the speed and convenience of mobile commerce, and are coming to expect it at retail establishments, if the experience of the Alvin Community College Store, Alvin, TX, is any indication.

After Manager Victoria Marvel added a mobile solution to her store’s point-of-sale system in order to facilitate remote sales at events such as ACC baseball games, she didn’t need to do much training with her student employees. When she showed them the handheld checkout device, “our student workers just grabbed it out of my hand and wanted to play around with it,” she said during her educational presentation on Go to Your Students: Mobile Commerce at CAMEX 2014 in Dallas, TX.

Her student customers were equally excited. These days, with students preferring not to carry around much cash, they were thrilled to be able to buy spirit merchandise at games with their debit or credit card.

“Students absolutely love it,” Marvel said. To complete the sale, all she has to do is scan the bar code on the product tag, swipe the customer’s card, and find out if they want a receipt.

She can print out a paper receipt from the mobile device, or email a digital version to students if they prefer. “They don’t really care about receipts,” Marvel commented, “but probably 20% to 30% have it come to email.”