iPads Are Rockin’ the Retail World… And It Couldn’t Be Easier To Get Started [Case Study]

Although the iPad began as a “magical” device for consumers, Apple’s tablet is quickly finding a place in business. From do-it-yourself meccas such as Lowe’s to the glamorous Gucci, retailers are learning how the iPad attracts, retains and increases customers. Indeed, 25 percent of iPads sold in 2011 will go to businesses, according to New York consulting firm Deloitte.

“It is taking retail outside the four walls to where the customers are,” Sandeep Bhamote says. Bhanote is CEO of Global Bay Mobile Technologies, a South Plainfield, NJ-firm selling retail software, including for the iPad. However, in many cases, all it takes to attract customers is the iPad, its default software and a piece of credit card scanning hardware.

In Brooklyn, New York, goodyoga has revamped the customer experience, doing away with the front counter. Instead, arriving customers are handed an iPad which they can sit with and have some tea. Along the way, customers can fill out a Google Docs form and then swipe their credit card through an iPad attachment from Square.

The iPad is also replacing flipping through old National Geographics while waiting at a retailer. At the TriBeCa nail salon, customers can surf the web, or check their email on the iPad as they get their nails done. People get to use an iPad without buying one and the salon keeps customers satisfied.

A growing use of iPads is in restaurants, where the tablet is used by guests to order from their table, sending their food requests to the kitchen by tapping the “Send” button. At 4food, a fast-food shop in New York City, there are six iPads for customers to place orders. When lines of customers grow, employees spread out, taking orders via iPads so diners don’t have to wait to be seated before ordering.

The iPad, initially a consumer crazy, are fast becoming the preferred tool for retailers squeezed by lean profits but still wanting to keep customers’ attention. We’ll take a look at other ways iPads are becoming as vital to business as the iPhone.

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.