‘Brick And Mortar'…Or ‘Brick And Mobile'?

Brick-and-mortar retailers are rapidly diversifying their shopping, checkout and payment methods in an effort to combat the erosion of sales to online channels and to provide an improved experience for their consumers. As a result, when a customer enters a store, they may encounter everything from self-checkout kiosks to store-specific mobile applications, scan-as-you-go devices or even sales clerks toting smartphones that can complete the transaction in the middle of an aisle. Recently, however, more and more retailers have been making plans to implement the "just walk out" model, which allows consumers to, quite literally, just walk out with their items once they are done shopping.