Think Uber, think order ahead, think account on file. With these ideas in your mind think engagement and Omni channel. Then consider the need of merchants to assure revenue by delighting and engaging with their customers in meaningful ways. Their focus, increasing basket size, more frequent visits and loyalty; in other words increased sales.
Then remember, Check-out is about friction, payments and long lines. These characteristics merchants seek to eliminate, reduce the cost of and enhance the experience around.
If we think Check-in, using big-data, geo-location, BLE, facial recognition, consumer centric apps and other techniques, we can image a world where human and device based personal assistants engage with the merchants loyal customers in a friendly, informed and satisfying way.
For payment people this means we need to remember that merchants want lower cost payments and friction-less check-out.
Bottom line, for loyal customers solutions that retain the payment credentials securely in the cloud. For one time and infrequent customers, they will look to incent loyalty and registration or simply accept classic means of payments e.g. cards.
This drive to move from recording a loyal customers visit to engaging when the customer arrives or better yet when they are doing their research is what we the consumer seek.
We are all about saving time, enjoying life and satisfying our needs and wants. Merchants that focus on the customer and their shopping experience will succeed and prosper./ Those that do not focus on delighting their customer will learn.