Ever since tablets were introduced in the marketplace they’ve been highly popular with the tech crowd. Perfect as an alternative to lugging around a desktop computer with you everywhere you go, these devices have become integral to many professionals in the workplace. The technology being developed surrounding the tablet is making it possible for business owners of all skill levels to grow their business. Utilizing the tablet is fun and interactive for customers and it is affordable for business owners. Here are a few ways that tablets are making waves in businesses and how you can start using them in your business as well.
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Use Your Tablet as a Kiosk
When you’re looking to sell to customers, it’s all about providing the right kind of information in a way your customers can appreciate. Kiosks utilizing a tablet attract attention and get customers involved in ways no paper advertisement can, according to Smashing Magazine. People walking by the kiosk are instantly drawn in and want to see what’s going on. As they tap the screen and start playing with the tablet, they become totally engrossed and before long, they’re buying merchandise they didn’t even come into the store to purchase. This goes along with the trends showing that tablet users are buyers. They like to tap on advertisements and learn more about the products they’re interested in. Setting up a kiosk in your store allows tablet users to feed their desire to see information on a tablet screen, which then grows your bottom line. The key is to make sure the screen is highly interactive, that the home button is covered so customers can only interact with your screen, and that all information is presented without selling. You may not even want to include prices, so the customer can stick to the information they need to make their own decision to buy.
Tablets in Restaurants
A market always in favor of new technology is the restaurant industry. Using POS systems like ones from premium companies such as Shopify to deliver orders to the kitchen rather than relying on hand-written orders, using the Internet to place reservations and orders, and now using tablets at tables are all par for the course. These tablets are not only fun to use, but they also tend to make the customers spend a little more than they were intending to, according to CNBC. The trick is how inticing the tablet can be for people. You see the screen with all the beautiful pictures of food tempting you and you’re powerless to resist the urge. Just the simple act of ordering something through the tablet has a certain amount of pleasure to it.
One chief complaint people have when they’re at a restaurant is how long it takes for the check to arrive, and another is the annoyance in trying to split a check. These are no longer a factor with the tablet at the table, because guests can take charge of when they will receive the check and how they’re going to pay it.
Retail Stores Embrace the iPad
In addition to the kiosk idea mentioned above, retail stores love tablets. Many have started ditching the old school cash register, nothing more than an overgrown calculator, in favor of the sleek and attractive iPad POS system. With such amazing add-ons as a portable barcode scanner, there seems to be no end to the usefulness of the iPad in the retail scene. Add-ons require no wires because they operate based on Bluetooth technology or Wi-Fi. The main draw for new retail stores, when it comes to this technology, is the price, according to the Small Business Administration (SBA). You can spend up to $50,000 for a good traditional POS system and expect to keep paying for upgrades and maintenance. With an iPad POS system, you can be completely up and running with a cash drawer and everything else you need for less than $1,000.
Marketing through Tablets Online
The ability for businesses to make money thanks to the tablet does not end within the four walls of the business itself. Thanks to responsive design, websites can be viewed just as easily on the tablet as they can on a standard desktop. With more than 20 percent of all Google searches being conducted through mobile devices, according to the Huffington Post, it is essential to have a website with the ability to be viewable on any device. The trick is to have a website that does more than just shrink to fit the screen. You need to make sure that the resolution of the screen is also taken into consideration and that certain elements are switched to make more sense on the smaller screen, including the navigation tabs. These can be switched into a list format rather than tabs to save room on the screen, which makes it even easier to promote sales on the site.
