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PowaTag is a mobile commerce app that hopes to make it easier for consumers to buy with their smart phones.
Launched this week, PowaTag identifies products using a smart phone’s camera and microphone to detect special cues embedded in print displays, television commercials or online using the PowaTag watermark. Developed by London-based Powa Technologies Ltd., the service also features a Bluetooth Low Energy product merchants can use in stores to send offers directly to consumer smart phones.
Already, 240 brands, including gift retailer Harry and David, apparel and housewares retailer Laura Ashley Inc., use the app, Dan Wagner, Powa chief executive, tells Digital Transactions News.
To use the service, after downloading the app and creating an account, for in-store transactions the consumer points the phone’s camera at an object, locates a Powa bar code, and scans it. Consumers also can scan codes included in printed advertisements and elsewhere, in addition to snapping a photo of an item in a television commercial. The uses the phone’s microphone and camera to determine if the item is part of a retailer’s Powa campaign. The watermarked item then appears on the next screen where the consumer selects size and color, and confirms the shipping address and payment method.
A tap of the Pay Now button sends the payment information from Powa to the merchant. The service is free to consumers, but merchants pay the greater of 40 cents or 10 basis points, Wagner says. That is in addition to the merchant’s payment-processing fees, he says.
Powa also is selling a Bluetooth Low Energy service that uses a set of beacons placed in stores. Bluetooth Low Energy promises connectivity with very low power draws on devices using the technology. It can be used with compatible smart phones and apps to present offers directly to consumers while they shop in a beacon-equipped area. Powa is selling a set of three beacons for $99. Eventually, Powa expects to add payment capability to the beacon technology, but for now it presents offers.
Powa’s tactic to reach consumers is to make its app as ubiquitous as possible, Wagner says. Smaller merchants do not have the resources to build mobile commerce apps, and they have a tougher time persuading consumers to download the apps, he says. “Consumers don’t want to have 10,000 apps on their phones,” Wagner says.
The impetus for PowaTag is to reduce the percentage of abandoned shopping carts consumers leave online and to increase the purchase amounts while in stores, Wagner says. The service also has the benefit of enabling consumers to shop from their couches, while watching television, or while they are out and about, he says.
If PowaTag can come through on its promise of a fast and easy checkout experience for consumers, it may have a chance at success, says Steve Rowen, an analyst at RSR Research LLC, a retail-consulting firm.
“The issue will be getting the word out,” Rowen says. “No one wants to type their information over and over into the smallest devices we own. But unless the consumer knows what the solution is and how it will make their life easier, I just don’t know.”
